All That Binds Us
by Cadel
Summary: A confused Naruto finds himself in a world where ninjas don't exist. Being a civilian school boy has never been so hard for the 16yr old shinobi as he and Itachi ally together to try and find their way back home.
1. Chapter 1

**AUTHOR - **Cadel

**FANDOM – **Naruto

**SUMMARY** - _A botched battle leaves a very confused Naruto who ends up in a world where Ninjas don't exist and he's forced to go to 'school' while trying to figure out what the heck is going on. He makes a strange ally to get back to his world again. No pairings._

**GENRE - **General, Adventure, Friendship, Drama

**NOTE -** This begins during the Fourth Great Shinobi War and deviates a little after Naruto had talked to Nagato and Itachi. The rest of the story takes place in an entirely different world.

* * *

CHAPTER 1

* * *

[_Ghosts_]

The smell of flesh burning was familiar, the smell of his _own_ flesh searing off was even _more_ familiar. What had happened to his arms, he did not know. Just the tugging of his healing skin patching itself into smooth flesh accompanied the pain.

The beginning of the Fourth Great Shinobi War had begun days ago, but to Naruto those days felt like months drawn up in blood. He was not surprised by the nature of war but the urgency and the tension that lingered in the air was enough to make everyone suffocate. Fighting both Madara and the deranged Kabuto was taxing on all levels and now Naruto could not see where anyone was. He had lost Killer Bee somewhere behind him who he last saw fighting a resurrected Jinchuuriki, he didn't know the status of the Suna troops nor what the rest of his comrades were doing.

The entire thing was organized chaos.

Gasping a little, Naruto stumbled into a field in an artificially induced daze. Once there, he suddenly shook his head and frowned at where his feet had taken him.

To his left and right, all he could see was damaged terrain of a battle field crushed to rubble. Feeling uneasy by the eerie silence that should not have been there, Naruto began to back away from the empty battle field.

How had he even gotten here? Where was Bee? All Naruto felt was an uneasy presence of watching eyes that burned into his mind.

_Unnatural._

The hair on his neck prickled as the silence stretched on. The dirt and stony debris underneath Naruto's sandals seemed _off_. The smell of the air itself was almost muted with a layer of something the blonde sage could not point out.

Blue eyes scanned the terrain and found that the scenery was like a puzzle board with many of its pieces missing. There was no doubt in Naruto's mind this had been a battle ground by the speckled blood and the discarded broken weapons. He could almost make out the Cloud symbol on an abandoned Hitai-ate. The skirmish here couldn't have been more than a couple hours ago.

But there were no bodies.

Not a single sign of mangled corpses that should have been accompanied with such a battle field. Just the remnants of blood and weapons left behind.

A ghost battle field.

The missing ninjas were unsettling but not as much as the emptiness of chaos in such a place.

Where was everyone? It seems even the unknown enemy had left no trace of themselves. Was it Madara or was it one of Kabuto's resurrected puppets?

Naruto had been straining himself for the past couple of days, more mentally than anything else. He looked down at his hands and found they had already healed themselves from the hideous burns he had only moments ago. He pulled a kunai out of his pouch and stepped over the protruding stones and he scanned the area.

Naruto felt distinctly uncomfortable being here.

He should be helping the others out, he should be looking for Bee, not scouting out a battle ground that obviously has been abandoned. For the life of him, Naruto could not remember what had pulled him here in the first place. Patches of his memory from only mere minutes ago had been blacked out.

He tensed as he felt something move from behind.

Moving on instinct he threw his kunai at the speeding figure which dashed like a shadow through the outskirts of trees surrounding the field. Naruto couldn't see his opponent but he knew instinctively that this was not an ally of the five villages. Black smudges of movement kept flittering through the trees as it did a full circle of the entire field, seemingly sizing Naruto up. The blonde Jinchuuriki growled low in his throat at being observed like a cornered animal. It seemed that the figure was just circling him, like a vulture waiting for him to make the first move.

"Oi! Get out here, show yourself!" Naruto threw another kunai which almost hit his target.

All movements stopped after his last attack and Naruto poised himself on high alert as the presence completely disappeared. The sudden absence made him tense but he stretched his senses to gouge where his opponent was.

Something brushed against the back of Naruto's clothes and he whipped around in an instinctive kick which was only met with air. Why wasn't it doing anything? It just kept egging Naruto on without showing itself or attacking. He felt another brush against his leg but once again nothing was there.

"Stop playing around! If you wanna fight then fight me face to face!" he gritted his teeth and tensed trying to shake of the sudden coldness that lingered in the air.

Before Naruto could even react he heard a hush whisper breathed into his ear. "_Naruto_."

Pain burst through his abdomen in a sudden flash as a sleek silver impaled him from behind and through his stomach. Blood began to flow out of his mouth and torso and he heard a faint breathing from behind.

"You should keep your voice down Naruto; you made it far too easy for me to find you."

The blonde Jinchuuriki felt cold and his body tensed impeccably from the familiar deep voice that hunted his days and nights.

"_Sasuke?_" he strangled out quietly.

He was only answered with the sword being violently pulled out of his body. He clutched his abdomen as his chakra began to automatically heal his wounds and slowly turned to meet blood eyes there were achingly familiar yet completely alien.

"Sasuke..." he took a step back but his eyes never left the face of his best friend. "W-what are..." Naruto stopped talking as he felt the same flittering presence from before.

The flashing shadowy movements could not be seen but Naruto could distinctly feel its presence watching both Sasuke and him. That meant that Sasuke had nothing to do with the strange happenings of this area. Sasuke who was now standing stagnant in front of the wounded Naruto only stared impassively at the blonde.

Naruto reprimanded himself for moving his attention away from him former teammate but quickly focused back on Sasuke.

"I was not intending to find you, but now that I have it seems this will be an opportune time to finish you off." the raven traitor slowly circled Naruto while dragging his kusanagi against the ground like a silent predator. The pale face wasn't sneering or goading him. The raven was just a porcelain killing machine, drowning in hatred and anger that it no longer even showed in his face.

He suddenly lashed out at Naruto with his sword which was quickly blocked with a kunai.

The two young shinobi stared at each other intently, their noses almost touching over their blades. Naruto roamed his eyes over Sasuke's unnaturally blank facade and inwardly ached to see some semblance on emotion in his friend. There wasn't even anger there, just a emotionless body that just had Sasuke's face.

Just as quickly as they met, both ninja parted from each other and poised their bodies in offensive stances.

Naruto was shaking from his need to shake his friend out of his silly ideas and just hug him and take him home. The other more predatory side of him just wanted to smash his friends face in and gouge those corrupting orbs of red from his sockets. He was not meant to be fighting Sasuke; he was in the middle of a war which had a lot riding on Naruto's performance in aiding his friends against Madara and Kabuto. But Naruto knew that Sasuke was something he could not overlook, especially when he was standing right in front of him with poisonous killing intent spilling from the raven's body.

For once Naruto tried to override his usual rash instincts and took a deep breath.

He didn't drop his kunai, he wasn't stupid enough to let his guard down around Sasuke but Naruto eased out of his fighting stance and stood up straight while his eyes never left Sasuke's.

"I won't fight you." he whispered quietly.

"What's wrong Naruto, have you forgotten your promise to end all of this yourself?" Sasuke remained still without wavering. "It will be us two who will fight in the end. One to protect and one to destroy."

Naruto lifted his head and gazed strongly at his best friend. "Yes...in the end, but this isn't the _end_. Not yet at least. So I won't fight you today." he stated finally.

Sasuke continued to stare impassively at Naruto as if he didn't even hear him. The sudden chirping of blue lightning wrapped itself around his sword as he pointed it towards Naruto.

"I honestly don't care."

Moving at a speed that Naruto wasn't aware his friend was capable of, Sasuke bolted towards the blonde and began attacking Naruto in series of fluid movements that were surprisingly difficult to dodge. The Jinchuuriki managed to evade being stabbed again but he couldn't avoid being nicked with whips of electricity from his Kusanagi.

Naruto jumped back to keep the space between them. "Enough! I don't have time for this!"

Sasuke said nothing and continued attacking. Naruto knew the raven wasn't even trying his best to defeat Naruto. He wasn't even bothering to place Naruto in a Genjutsu or use his Amateratsu. But neither was Naruto. He wasn't in his sage mode or his newly acquired Nine-Tails Chakra Mode.

No, for once, Naruto was completely ignoring Sasuke. Something else was drawing his attention away.

The entire field that they were fighting on had unnerved Naruto to the core.

It kept drawing his attention away from Sasuke who was supposed to be his immediate threat but the blonde felt that Sasuke was not the only dangerous person lurking here. Naruto wondered why Sasuke hadn't realised the presence of the shadowy figure that kept flittering through the trees. What did it want and who side was it on?

It seemed that Naruto lack of attention had not been missed by Sasuke as he slashed at Naruto's chest. Naruto staggered back and felt that this cut was different than usual. He wasn't healing as fast he usually did.

"You feel it blocking it right?" Sasuke asked monotonously.

"What did you do?" Naruto gasp as something began to press heavily in his lungs.

The raven just gave Naruto a frustratingly impassive look. "Your healing assisted by Kyuubi has not missed my attention. It is near impossible to injure your body so..." Sasuke lifted his blade to look at his own sword which now tinted with a vile looking green. "I got rid of the issue altogether."

True to his word, Naruto's healing abilities slowed to a stop. Blood oozed from the wide slash over his chest and stinging was amplified with every movement he made.

Naruto glared then grinned. "That ain't gonna stop me." The field was filled with clones in less than a second and began to charge at Sasuke. Naruto knew that it would barely even tire the raven out but it was only a distraction.

Naruto was focusing on the mysterious shadowy presence that he _knew_ was observing both of them.

It was beyond unnerving to fight one person while completely being watched by another possible enemy.

Naruto went into his Sage Mode and began to track movements in the trees while keeping Sasuke in his peripheral vision. Naruto couldn't give an answer to why he seemed to be focusing so entirely on finding this mysterious enemy when Sasuke was supposed to be his main focus.

There was something going on. Naruto could sense it even without Kyuubi's help.

He cursed himself for being in this situation when he just wanted to find his comrades. He felt like he somehow failed them by first being lost then put in a position where he couldn't even afford to fight Sasuke.

Sasuke seemed to have dispelled all the Bunshin and was now attacking Naruto in earnest. Dodging, evading and running were not Naruto's style and it killed him a little to be the one to be on the defensive but Naruto was still tracking the strange presence while fighting off Sasuke simultaneously. He won't last long if he continued to dance around Sasuke's attacks.

Naruto wasn't sure what had distracted him or if it was just an error on his behalf but the blonde had lost concentration for just a moment and a second was all Sasuke needed. The raven saw Naruto falter and immediate sent a massive stream of fire directly to the Jinchuuriki's head.

For three slow seconds all Naruto saw was a hurling ball of fire. His hands and legs suddenly stuck to the ground by some unknown force prevented him from defending himself. For those three seconds, Naruto truly believed he was going to be hit.

Till he saw a flash of black hair and equally dark bird feathers obstruct his vision.

Naruto blinked, fully expecting to have his face melted off but only to find Sasuke prostrated to the ground with ink seals crawling up his arms and legs like insects. The raven was scowling viciously at the encroaching ink patterns that continued to appear from the ground and run up his body till Sasuke's entire skin was covered in delicate inked seals. He pulled and struggled but something seemed to have kept him from moving just like Naruto was.

For a moment those red eyes looked directly Naruto who was watching in confusion then before he could take another breath, Uchiha Sasuke completely vanished on the spot.

All that remained was a wisp of settling dust. Nothing more.

"S - Sasuke?" Naruto whispered out. The blonde was now genuinely concerned for his former teammate at the possibility that he was dead. "Sasuke where are you!" Naruto knew it probably wasn't wise to be yelling in enemy territory but he couldn't let go of the fear for his friend.

"He's gone."

Naruto's head snapped back which caused a great deal of pain for his neck as he couldn't at such a strange angle. Naruto realised that the same inky seals were wrapped up his arms and legs which kept him immovable by some unknown force. Like invisible ropes attached to the ground.

"What have you done?" Naruto growled at the voice. "Where's Sasuke?"

A cloaked figure in black stepped into his view with his face covered by a heavy hood. Naruto growled at the sight of the man who could possibly be anyone. There was nothing to indicate the identity of the man which Naruto was absolutely sure was a Shinobi.

"Peace Naruto." soothed the voice. "The boy is not dead. He is simply somewhere else. Nine kilometers south of here for be exact." the man answered in a clean voice.

Naruto stopped tugging at the seal ropes and looked back at the man still glaring. "Who are you? Are you with Madara? Kabuto?" Naruto demanded trying to ignore that burning in his chest. "Let me go of these damn seals!"

"I am allied with neither of these men." the cloaked figure answered.

Naruto couldn't help but feel a little relived but it was small and his paranoia was far stronger.

"I am not allied with you either." the man clarified soon afterwards.

Naruto looked around him again and something clicked in his brain. "Are you responsible for the missing bodies here?"

The man said nothing. Naruto took that as a yes. This man's ability allowed him to transport people over large distances - like he did with Sasuke - then why not the other bodies? But Naruto couldn't fathom why he would do such a thing.

Naruto just stared silently at the man not sure if he was angry or not. "Will you let me go?" he finally asked through gritted teeth.

"No."

"Than what the hell do you want?"

The man stepped closer which made Naruto want to step back. He kneeled down so he was at the boy's eye level but Naruto still couldn't see his face shrouded in shadow. The man brought his hands out and began making swift hand signs and traced his fingers on the dirt as if he was writing.

Naruto began to wriggle violently at the paralyzing seals that were now crawling up his arms and all over his body till he was covered in ink patterns and seals from head to toe.

"What are you doing?" Naruto felt a tickling sensation as the seals nested themselves on his skin. "You gonna get rid of me as well? Like you did to Sasuke?" he seethed under his breath.

The man looked up and Naruto saw a pair of black sclera's just like the black eyes of the victims of the Forbidden World Resurrection.

"Y-you've been resurrected like the rest of them!" Naruto seethed but tried to reel in his aversion to the resurrected shinobi. "You're with Kabuto!"

"No." he answered simply again.

The man did not say anything but continued to draw up seals around Naruto. In a matter of moments the seal began to glow with an unearthly blue light. The seals on the ground lit up then slowly the blue glow ran up the seals on Naruto's body. The blonde stared wide-eyed at what was happening at snapped his eyes back at the hooded man.

"I think it's time that Uzumaki Naruto made a final disappearance from this world." the man hushed softly, his voice contrasting with Naruto's terror.

Naruto flared his own chakra in a final attempt to stop whatever was happening. He wrapped himself in Kyuubi's chakra like a safety blanket and stared wide-eyed as the man made a final flare of his own chakra.

Light was all that was left.

Then nothing.

* * *

The nurse held her clipboard close to her chest as she pushed the curtains back from the isolated cubicle.

She smiled gently at the lovely flowers that adorned the table next to the children's beds. Cards and soft teddies decorated the room and colour broke from the drawings stuck to plain pastel walls. It was always endearing to see children excited over things as simple as cards, it was something that would get their minds off their stay in the hospital.

She spoke shortly to all the children that were awake and gently tucked them in. As much as the nurse loved working with children in the hospital, she couldn't wait till her shift was over. Sometimes it was a little depressing to be around sick children all day.

The nurse went to the next room and immediately she could visibly see a big difference. There was no cards, no flowers and soft leaves decorating the rooms, there was nothing that indicated there was someone out there worrying for the still patient lying motionlessly in the middle of the room. The nurse eyed the boy that hadn't moved once since she had seen him. It pained her to watch someone so young in such a state.

The young blonde teenager had been in a coma for two weeks now.

His hair was the only dash of colour in the entire room. A shade of blonde that gleamed in the dim afternoon light, its colour so sunny and bright, it mocked the melancholy mood she always felt when she walked in the room. The sound of constant beeping from the monitor had long ago turned to background noise that she hardly registered anymore. She walked around the bed to check up on his heart rate, the drips connected to his arms and the food tube inserted down his throat.

She missed the slight movement behind the boy's eyelids when she scribbled something down on her board.

After she completed the basic check-up she turned around to leave. Just before she left the threshold, the beeping from the monitor suddenly increased. She snapped her head around to look at the small screen but when she observed the thin green line, it showed no change. The nurse stood there for a moment half expecting for the beeping to go off but the rhythm on the boys heart thumped at its regular pace. With one last look, she walked out of the room.

As the nurse left, she completely missed tanned fingers bending inwards, wrapping around in a curl, as if trying to clutch on to something.

* * *

The awakening was neither smooth nor jarring.

It just left the blonde boy feeling disorientated from such a muddled sleep that honestly felt worse than chakra exhaustion. His eyes did not adjust to the light and even if it did, all he saw was haze through even more haze.

Blinking away his dizziness, Naruto finally gained enough senses to observe what he was staring at.

A ceiling.

The boy frowned slightly as something stirred in the back of his mind; something that said what he was supposed to see was blue sky not white fiber walls. He was in a bed…a bed…a -

A _bed_? That alone made alarm bells ring in the Jinchuuriki's head. He was covered in white sheets and a light blue pillow was tucked underneath his head. Antiseptics and bitter aromatic acid mixed in his nose. There was definitely the smell of bleach and moisturiser as well. The boy frowned again.

He was in a hospital…but the scents were not what he had expected. There was too much chemicals, much more than he was used to - at least more than the hospital in Konoha. But did that mean he wasn't in Konoha…was he even in Fire country?

He couldn't even seem to recall what he was doing before he had woken up.

Without thinking about it much further, the blonde boy slowly sat up which immediate ensured a heavy dizzy spell to erupt.

His throat hurt and so did his arms but he soon realised he had pipes inserted into skin and grimaced when he pulled them out. The food tubes down his throat were far more uncomfortable and he almost gagged when he attempted to remove them. He threw the sheets off his body and stretched out his legs to the side. There was something definitely off with his muscles, they weren't as strong as he remembered; if anything, he couldn't remember when was the last he felt this weak without actually being ill.

With slow movements, Naruto stood up shivering as his bare feet touched the cold floor.

He rubbed his eyes and pulled his arms and legs into a brief stretch which hurt a lot more than he thought it would. He couldn't see any serious wounds other than a few dried scabs and bruises. Although the headache was almost more than Naruto could bare. It was probably one of the worst migraines he's ever experienced.

But looking back at his wounds Naruto felt a sliver of worry. Why weren't his scratched and bruises gone? They should have healed almost instantly but from observation, Naruto guessed these old wounds were over a week old. Was there something wrong with his seal?

There was something else…something missing. From the moment Naruto had woken up, he couldn't shake off the feeling that something fundamentally vital was missing from him. Naruto tried to shake his disorientation away not liking the ill feeling that was sinking into his gut.

"Oh my god! Y – You're awake!"

Naruto jumped at the sudden voice and found a nurse standing at the threshold of the room with a shocked expression on her face. She momentarily floundered not sure what to do till she bolted out the door, probably to get a doctor.

Naruto couldn't help but want to leave immediately due to not really wanting to deal with doctors but something was greatly unnerving him which made him stay still. Despite knowing that he was in a hospital, Naruto didn't recognise the walls, or the people or even the _smell._ The last one actually irked him the most because the blonde relied greatly on his senses and right now he was lost in an unfamiliar hospital, probably in a completely different country. He tried to assure himself that if these people were willing to heal him then they were probably not the enemy.

"Mr Uzumaki? Naruto Uzumaki?"

He was broken out of his thoughts when a man in his late forties was staring at him intently with a clipboard in his hand and the nurse standing behind him with a concerned face. The boy silently cursed himself for not sensing him sooner.

Naruto tried to speak but found he had to clear his sore throat first. "Hai."

The doctor paused and a strange looked passed his face as he stared at Naruto. The man quickly smiled and nodded. "I think it would be better if you have a seat first, it's probably best for you not to strain your muscles at the moment."

Naruto almost frowned in annoyance at the man's suggestion. He was a ninja for kami's sake, he could stand just fine. In the end Naruto just shook his head not bothering to tax his voice. The doctor insisted but Naruto remained standing. In the end the doctor just nodded and continued on.

"Now, I need you to tell me the last thing you can recall before waking up here." the man asked slowly as if he was speaking to a child.

Naruto frowned as his ache in his increased. "Um…" the boy tried his best to drudge up his foggy mind to the front. "Kigi to... Kaminari...Akatsuki?" He cursed inwardly for his stupid brain to work. "Inku…" then he nodded. "Yeah, ink and…" he frowned again.

The blonde didn't miss the odd looks he was now receiving from both the nurse and the male doctor. He paused to look at them quizzically. Why were they looking at him so oddly? Naruto consciously looked down at his simple hospital pants and shirt to see if there was something unsavoury covering his body.

"Nani?"

"Er, perhaps you really should lie down Mr Uzumaki, I think we need to bring in someone to help us to understand you." The doctor said only confusing Naruto even more.

Understand him? What the hell were they talking about? He was speaking perfectly normal. He scowled a little bit when he heard the doctor tell the nurse to call up a translator. Naruto was about to retort rudely when something out the window caught his attention.

The young blonde walked slowly to the glass as he peered outside the window. It was late evening, almost night and he could see lights illuminating the entire scenery. So many tiny lights, red, blue, green, yellow and white speckling brightly like stars all the way to the obscured horizon. But he saw no stars in the sky, just a few glimmering dots.

It was kinda beautiful but Naruto knew something was not right…there was something horrible wrong. His instincts were going haywire and his head was aching furiously as he stared out the window.

A sign board that was advertising some kind of product could be seen outside but it was not the sign that caught Naruto's attention but the bold letters that spelt '_KONOHA'_ on it.

Something cracked inside of his mind and a sudden realisation caught Naruto off guard.

This was not Konoha but a place disguising itself as his home village. He could only think that it was an ambitious and stupid thing to attempt. But something like this didn't make sense. It didn't even _look_ like Konoha. It looked like a really large town or a very small city and the buildings were all wrong. Besides Konoha resemble a really large hole at the moment due to the destruction caused by Pein's invasion.

The blonde teenager suddenly focused and exclaimed. "Kai!"

He was only met with the concerned gazes of the two people standing in the room. He suddenly whirled around to face the doctor and the nurse and he crouched low in a defensive stance. "Who are you?" he growled out.

The doctor gave a startled look at the boy's sudden hostility while the nurse squeaked in surprise.

"Naruto, I think you really need to relax. Just take it easy, you've had a rough couple of weeks and I'm sure it's perfectly natural for you to be a little confused." The doctor tried to reason.

He just scowled again. "Where am I?"

The doctor blinked then answered. "You're in Konoha."

The boy just seethed at the man as if he was insane. "Usotsuki." _Liar._

The man didn't seem to understand but knew that the boy was angry. The nurse behind was confused and a little frightened by the once peaceful looking boy that turned rather frightening in only a few short moments.

Naruto eyes narrowed and he suddenly darted out of the room before either of the two hospital staff could do anything. He could hear them yelling at him to come back which was followed by the sounds of following shoes. The hallways bended and turned in unfamiliar directions but a quick look at a map on the wall was all Naruto needed to navigate his way out of the hospital. He ran through, ignoring the bewildered look of people who saw him bolting down the corridors.

He cursed himself for ignoring his instincts.

Something had been wrong from the very moment he woke up. His minds was muddled and possibly tampered with, his memory was patchy at best and he had no idea what happened to all his muscles. The simple task of just jogging lightly was giving him cramps.

It only took Naruto a few minutes to reach the hospital foyer and burst through the main front doors.

The sight that met the young Jinchuuriki made him stop in his tracks.

Tall building rose high into the sky and lights seemed to glow from everywhere. The sudden rush of noise was what hurt Naruto's senses the most as he was not expecting it to be so loud at night. He could hear voices calling out his name from behind. Without thinking Naruto began to run across the concrete ground and bolt away from his pursuers. His head began to thump loudly, even more than before and his eye began to haze in and out but Naruto ignored it and continued running straight ahead.

Confusion was by far the most dominant problem at the moment other than his immediate pursuers. He tried to put some chakra into his feet but to Naruto's horror he felt nothing happen. The blonde's head was beginning to thrum so horribly that the pain was almost violent. But adrenalin, pain, anger and a little bit of fear catapulted the blonde onwards.

It seemed that whatever luck Naruto had received so far had ended to moment he walked out onto the tar road. The unfamiliar territory and lights obstructed Naruto's senses to dull and as he ran across the street, he did not see the oncoming vehicle racing his way.

Unfortunately by the time Naruto turned to look all he saw were bright headlights and the sound of screeching wheels ripping through the cold night air.

Darkness was all that was left.

* * *

**A/N: **This one was a little more like a prologue than anything else. I hope the battle at the start was easy to understand.

Basically the reason the doctor and the nurse were looking at Naruto weird was because he was answering their questions in Japanese and then half English. Naruto isn't even aware he was speaking half English at all.

The world Naruto has landed in is very much like our own and the people dominantly speak English. But even in this world, places like Konoha are influnced by Japanese culture and traditions.

I hope that gives a little insight.

Whadya reckon? Should this be continued? Your advice is greatly appreciated.

CADEL


	2. Chapter 2

**TITLE - **All That Binds Us

**AUTHOR - **Cadel

**FANDOM – **Naruto

**SUMMARY** - _A botched battle leaves a very confused Naruto who ends up in a world where Ninjas don't exist and he's forced to go to 'school' while trying to figure out what the heck is going on. He makes a strange ally to get back to his world again. No pairings._

**GENRE - **General, Adventure, Friendship

* * *

CHAPTER 2

* * *

[Sink]

The second time Naruto woke from unconsciousness was a little better than the first.

His headache was gone and his muscle seemed to stop cramping ever other second but it was only a small improvement. The boy's confusion on the other hand only seemed to increase as he rose from his slumber. He could hear voices all around him, whispering and murmuring insistently. Voices unfamiliar and far away had annoyingly managed to invade his ears and lodge confusion into his brain. He also felt tired. Tired enough to force himself to fall back into sleep, enough to pretend that he wasn't moving closer to consciousness every second that passed by.

_"...not...he'll be fine... each..."_

Blurry voices continued to muddle Naruto's mind as he caught bits and pieces of speech.

_"Straight into...moving car..."_

_"Don't know if...call...recovering..."_

Naruto let out a groan as he could no longer hold onto whatever remnant of sleep that lingered.

"Oi...shuddup." he croaked out.

He could hear feet moving closer to him and someone doing something to the sheets that he presumed were on his body. Slowly opening his eyes, he blinked away the bright light and tried to focus his blurry vision onto the faces that stared at him.

Naruto noted he didn't recognise any of the faces that stared down at him in concern.

Who were these people? Which hospital was he in? Konoha was definitely not a possibility. He knew Konoha's hospital like the back of his hand and he also knew that the hospital had been annihilated in Pein's invasion. He couldn't figure out _why_ he in a hospital bed in the first place let alone which one.

He was supposed to be...supposed to be...somewhere else...somewhere...

The blonde suddenly sat up alerting all those around him and he suddenly began to look slightly panicky. He wasn't supposed to be resting; he was needed in the front lines. He was in a middle of a _war_ damn it! He had his comrades, his allies and everyone else depending on him. How could he have managed to be...to be..._here?_

"Sir please calm yourself." a nurse tried to sooth above him. "Mr. Uzumaki, listen to my voice and try to focus."

Naruto turned to look at a brown haired nurse with wide eyes that looked confused and panicky.

"Why did you bring me here? I'm supposed to be with my friends, with my comrades!" The blonde boy began to lift up his sheets and started to get off the cot but it seemed the staff was expecting his escape attempt and brought two strong men to hold him down.

"Oi, let me go you bastards!"

It shamed him to admit that he was actually too weak to fight against them, against two civilian men which shouldn't have been a problem.

A clean shaven man in his thirties with black sleeked hair suddenly came into Naruto's vision and placed a sudden cool hand on the boy's forehead. Naruto stopped struggling as the man felt his forehead and suddenly flashed a torch in his eye.

"Oi stop that!"

"Have I got your attention?" he asked coolly. "Now, I'll tell these men to let you go if you promise to stop trying to get out of bed."

The boy seethed at him but stopped bothering to struggle as they reluctantly began releasing him. He suddenly felt too tired to move. "Fine."

"Good, now we'll be asking a few questions so we can see how much you've recovered." the man brought out a pen and a notepad from seemingly nowhere and looked at the blonde. "Do you remember your name?"

Naruto grumbled a, "Hai."

"Is that a yes?" the doctor asked randomly.

Naruto frowned at the stupid question. "I just said that didn't I?"

"Alright, can you tell me your name?"

"Uzumaki Naruto."

"Age?"

"Sixteen."

"Date of birth?"

"October 10, the year of the Sixth Freesia Dragon." he murmured.

The doctor paused for a moment then scribbled something down. Naruto didn't miss the odd look that passed the man's face.

"Alright, can you recall what happened yesterday when you woke up for the first time?"

Naruto scowled suddenly that it took the doctor by surprise. "Yeah, I remember."

"You tried to escape. Why?" he asked gently.

"Why not? The man was sprouting out nonsense and I wanted out."

"You weren't afraid? That wasn't the reason you ran?" the doctor prodded.

The blonde snorted. "I ain't afraid, like I said, I was pissed and he was in the way."

"Are you angry now?" the dark haired doctor asked while writing.

The boy didn't answer for a moment then shook his head. "No...But I'm a little irritated. I don't like staying in hospitals and never needed to stay in one for long. I heal fast so you might as well let me go. All of this should be in my files." the boy crossed his arms across his chest and turned the other way.

"Well, that might take a while; you were hit by a car yesterday."

"_Kar_?" the blonde just sighed after a moment and ran his bandaged hand through his hair. "Look whatever, I'm fine now and I _function _so we're all good."

"That may be so but you'll need to put under observation for a couple more days." the doctor looked at the boy in all seriousness but his eyes remained gentle. "I don't think you remember but you were found unconscious in your room with a very serious head injury. We thought it was just a slight trauma but you didn't wake up." the boy looked up with confused blue eyes. "Naruto you've been in a level one coma for a week."

Naruto physically paled at the idea of being in a coma for so long. He had to fight the urge to jump right out of bed and start running towards the nearest battle ground. How could he have been incapacitated at a time like this? In a middle of a _war_!

"A _week_? In a coma! That's not possible." he shook his head. "I was just with Killer Bee and helping out Suna in the front lines. I can't have been stuck here so long! They need me, I'm a shinobi dammit!" the boy was now shaking his head furiously. "No, not possible. Where's Kakashi- sensei? How come Tsunade baa-chan hasn't seen me yet?"

Naruto knew that it was irrational to expect seeing either Tsunade or Kakashi during war time but he suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to see a familiar face.

"Tsunade?" the man frowned a little. "You know of her?"

The blonde ignored his question. "Please, let me talk to one of my team mates or at least my sensei." the boy whispered a little desperately.

The doctor looked down at the blonde with worried eyes. "I'm afraid I don't know who your _teammates _are but I do have someone who has been put down as an emergency contact and will be arriving soon." he reassured.

The blonde nodded. "Fine, just...I wanna go back to Konoha after this."

The doctor was about to get up but stopped to observe the boy. "You _are _in Konoha."

"Don't even try to say that." the boy suddenly spat out with a viciousness that surprised the white coated man. "It's not. Don't you dare say that this place is Konoha."

"Then what place is this?" the doctor asked as neutrally as he could.

The young man looked up at the doctor with eyes that seemed a little darker than he expected and answered. "This place is _wrong._ Probably some other village, maybe a hidden village, I don't care but I know this isn't my home." With those firm words the boy turned, laid back down on his pillow and turned the other way.

The man lingered for a moment, his mind a little confused and his concern only increased for the young blonde man in front of him.

* * *

For Naruto, his second wave of shock came shortly after the doctor left as he came to a shattering realisation.

He had no chakra.

He attempted to boost his legs with chakra so he could make a quick escape but found that nothing happened.

He tried and tried again for almost a whole hour but he couldn't even manage the easiest chakra control exercise. He tried to widen his senses but he felt oddly muted.

The blonde teen had denied this horrifyingly new revelation on his so called head injury, coma or chakra exhaustion but it was something that had begun to sink in over the hour.

Not only could he not practice or physically use chakra anymore but he could _feel_ it's absence in his body, in his veins...it was completely gone. The familiar warmth of his unique blue and red chakra was no longer circulating his limbs like a warm blanket, it no longer ran through his body and Naruto was beginning to become acutely colder with its absence.

Chakra was something that has been such an integral part of his existence that the very idea of _not_ having the warm energy in him was..._wrong_. He was a ninja for kami sakes! How could he _not_ have it?

Naruto may not have paid much attention in theory classes but he was pretty sure that a human being couldn't survive without chakra. All living things had chakra, animals, trees and even the smallest blades of grass. Chakra was in _everything_. Without it, it would mean death.

Naruto curled in on himself as the shock sank deep into his bones.

What was wrong with him? He had no clue where he was or if this entire farce was some crazy, complex genjutsu. If so, Naruto will forever respect all damn illusionary techniques till the day he died.

The depressing thought were abruptly broken by the sounds of sliding doors and a familiar smell that hit Naruto's senses. He turned to look at his new visitor and saw a pair of warm brown eyes looking at him in concern.

"Iruka!"

Before anyone could register his abrupt movement, Naruto leaped out of bed, despite his headache and injuries and tackled the poor teacher to the ground.

"Naruto!" Iruka cried in surprise as he found himself lying on the ground with a sixteen year old blonde sitting on his stomach.

"Sensei, you're here!" The boy hugged the man in a ridiculously strong hug for someone considered to be ill. "You came! Thank kami; I thought I was going insane here. Please, tell me you're taking me home, it smells funny here."

The brown eyed teacher just stared a little dazed by the whirlwind blonde but smiled kindly at his enthusiasm.

"Well, I'm happy to see you recovering. As for taking you home, that's up to the doctor to decide."

Iruka smiled at the pouting boy who just glared at the doctor who walked in with an easy smile.

"How are you feeling now Mr. Uzumaki?"

"Fine, no different." Naruto answered still hugging Iruka.

"Naruto? I can't feel my arms." he said with a strained smile.

The blonde blinked and jumped off his sensei's body but remained sitting on the floor with an excited look.

Iruka couldn't help wonder how someone that had been in a coma for a week could look effortlessly vibrant. It almost looked like he was never ill in the first place. He ruffled the blonde's hair as they both stood up.

"Well, you certainly look better." Iruka chuckled. But his smile wavered as Iruka's eyes took on a worried look that was all too familiar. "But I honestly didn't know what to do when I heard you were in coma. I couldn't visit often but I came as much as I could." Naruto suddenly felt the room freeze a little as Iruka's smile turned a bit frightening. "But please do tell why I heard that right after you had woken up, you threw yourself under a car the first chance you got?"

The blonde chuckled weakly as he scratched the back of his head. "Er...well, it was an accident and...the point is I'm totally fine!" he tried to reassure the angry teacher who wasn't very impressed.

"How could you be so reckless? You could have died right after you've just woke up!" Iruka looked so distressed at the possibility of Naruto being flattened by a _kar_ that Naruto felt a little guilty at his rash actions.

"Aw, sorry sensei, I blame it on the head injury." he chuckled. "Besides I can't tell you how relieved I am to see you 'cause I was starting to think this entire thing was some stupid Genjutsu." he visibly let out a relieved sigh. Completely missing the odd expression cross his teachers face he continued on. "But I have to ask, where are we? These guys keep insisting that we're in Konoha but last I check we haven't progressed too far into rebuilding the village. Is this a neighboring town?"

The two older men looked at each other and shared the same unreadable look that wasn't missed by the blonde ninja.

It was the doctor who broke the uneasy silence that had descended into the room.

"Naruto, you've been comatose for eight days now and despite it being only a level one coma, it's still serious. Physically I have diagnose that you're relatively healthy if not a little lethargic and you seemed to be suffering from little to no atrophy of the muscles." the doctor with the dark hair glanced at Iruka who was now holding Naruto's hand like it was something breakable. "However, I have found something that has been...concerning me for the last day."

The blonde teenager stared at the doctor like he was reciting a boring mantra about chakra ways but still listened regardless. "Yeah?"

"I believe that your head injury you received may have caused some neurological trauma." The doctor explained patiently.

"Trauma?" the boy repeated slowly with a small frown marring his forehead.

The doctor nodded. "Have you been having headaches?"

"...sorta, I had a pretty bad the first time round and that was right before I got it by a _kar_ but I barely feel anything right now. Why?"

"What's one-hundred minus eighty-three?"

Naruto just look confused. "What?"

"Can you please give me the answer to the equation." the doctor explained patiently.

"Er...seventeen."

"Twenty multiplied by twenty?"

"Four-hundred." Naruto answered still confused.

"Could you please count backwards from twenty?" the doctor asked kindly.

Naruto frowned but decided to humor the man and began counting backwards from twenty to zero. After he finished he gave an irritated looked to the older man.

"Are you finding it difficult to concentrate or focus?"

The blonde teen frowned again. "I can concentrate fine...well...at least the same as usual." the blonde suddenly sighed. "Where is this all going? 'Cause honestly I feel fine, just a little tired and _really_ hungry but other than that I'm totally cool." Naruto's head suddenly snapped at the doctor as he remembered the one thing that had been bothering him. "Hey doctor sir, I think there's something wrong with my chakra by the way, I can't feel anything. Do you know what's wrong?"

Doctor paused and looked at Naruto with a contemplating expression that honestly made the blonde jinchuuriki uncomfortable. Naruto turned to look at Iruka but all he saw was down casted brown eyes that looked sadly at him. The blonde shinobi wanted to tell Iruka to stop looking at him as if he was dying from a terminal illness but was distracted by his teachers shaking hands. The same hands which were clutching onto Naruto's own with palpable concern.

"Naruto, I think the head injury has caused you to create new memories that are not real." the doctor finally stated in an almost blunt manner that made Iruka visibly cringe. "It's not common but it has happened before. Patients that have had head trauma sometimes wake with entirely different memories, memories that had never existed before hand. I believed this has happened to you." the doctor explained as gently as he could to the baffled looking patient.

Naruto looked back at the doctor. "I don't understand...are you saying that I'm making up stuff in my head?"

The doctor nodded. "Yes."

The boy didn't say anything for a long time and both the doctor and Iruka began to worry at his silence. That is, until he began to laugh. And he continued to do so for a while till he was only chuckling.

"I'm sorry but your faces seemed so serious I couldn't keep it in!" he continued to chuckle to himself.

"Naruto! We _are_ serious." Iruka cut in with in usual temper.

The blonde ninja turned to look at his favourite sensei. "Sorry Iruka, don't be Mad." he stopped laughing but he still had a grin on his lips. "Besides I honestly don't know what you're talking about. All I've said makes perfect sense...if anything; it's _you_ guys that haven't been making sense. Hey Iruka, that other doctor yesterday said _this_ place was Konoha and he actually thought I'd believe It." he shook his head at the ridiculous notion.

Silence was met with his last statement and he stopped to look at Iruka's hand that was still gently clutching onto Naruto's. It tightened impeccably and it didn't take much for Naruto to see that Iruka was quite distressed.

"Iruka?"

The brown haired man didn't look up at the boy and stared down at their touching fingers. "N - Naruto...this _is_ Konoha." he whispered finally.

The casual smile in the young man's face slowly disappeared and a confused frown replaced it as he looked at his scarred teacher. "Sensei? W - What are talking about? You and I have lived in Konoha for all our lives. You've known me since we were little and you took me to Ichiraku's almost every day."

Naruto was beginning to feel increasingly uneasy by the strange atmosphere that seemed to have settled in the room. Iruka's behavior was even more of a concern as the familiar Chuunin refused to look at Naruto.

"Naruto, please listen to Me." he suddenly looked at Naruto with imploring eyes that were shining with held in tears. "You have lived in _this_ town for all your life. Konoha is _here_, I have lived _here_ all my life and I have known you since you were little _here _in _Konoha._ Do you understand?"

The blonde boy just stared unbelievingly into the young teachers face. "W - What are you saying sensei? You can't actually believe them?" he slowly withdrew his hands from Iruka's grasp and the man seemed to physically wither. "Y-you're my chuunin instructor, you've always been there for me, why are saying all of this now? I- it's a trick, a genjutsu of some kind of...I dunno, something! I just know this isn't my home! This isn't Konoha and please...don't tell me that it is."

The blonde what now staring incredulously at his sensei's words that almost seemed like a betrayal. He cursed himself for wanting to cry but he didn't know what to do. Iruka was like a father to him or a brother. His family. He was such a familiar face and the warmth in his eyes was not faked but why was he saying such strange things. Why was he not on his side? Perhaps they have him brainwashed or maybe this man was an impostor. But Naruto couldn't go through with the ideas regardless of how frighteningly possible they were. This brown-doe-eyed man's emotions were real and those could not be faked.

"N -Naruto...I'm sorry but the doctor is right...you're not yourself. You've been saying things that I don't understand. I don't know what chakra is and I don't know what a _chuunin_ is either but I know _you._ I don't care if you can't remember anything at all, you are still my Naruto." the teacher finally stated with sad but firm eyes that didn't let blue orbs escape his gentle compassion.

Naruto felt like crying but he didn't know if it was from relief of from grief.

The doctor nodded solemnly. "This is Konoha and you have lived here all your life. There are many people who can testify to that. Do not be worried Naruto, I understand you truly believe what you _think_ you remember but there have been cases like this before."

The dark haired doctor turned his head to the window and thought to himself for a moment.

"There was a case once where a man was in coma for three years and during his slumber he had created his own fantasy world complete with its own complex history, culture and society. He made up a language for it and created relationships with imaginary characters in his fantasy world. He even got married to his wife in his subconscious. When he woke up after three years, he truly thought that world he created was the real world and this reality to be the fake one." the doctor paused to let it sink in. "Eventually he recovered his memories but it took a lot of time and it caused a great deal of pain to his family and friend every time he adamantly kept rejecting them for a fake reality."

He understood what the doctor was saying but Naruto knew in the bottom of his heart that he was a shinobi, a ninja, a protector of the leaf and future Hokage. His dreams were real, he could feel them wrapping his heart and he could feel the ghost weight of a familiar Hitai-ate on his forehead. He was Uzumaki Naruto of Konohagakure, ninja of the leaf and son of Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato.

He knew who he was.

But Naruto looked over to Iruka who was sitting quietly and wringing the bottom of his shirt with his hands and felt a sudden tear in his chest. Those brown eyes that he knew so well were real as well...this man in front of him was tangible and his emotions were palpable.

A seed of poisonous doubt began to root into his heart as he watched his sensei worry over him.

Could...could he be wrong? Was the doctor right? Was he just making up everything?

Naruto suddenly shook his head, physically trying to rid himself of such traitorous thoughts. "No, no, it's not possible. I know who I am, I know who I want to be and I know the people most precious to me. No...not possible." he continued to shake his head.

Iruka suddenly pulled the blonde into a comforting hug that Naruto didn't protest to and gently tried to reassure the boy that his presence was real. "It's okay...y-you don't have to believe it...at least not for now...just consider it as an option. It's gonna be fine. We'll be alright." the poor teacher knew he was trying to comfort himself just as much as Naruto.

"Mr. Umino is right. I'm sure this is a rather stressing thing to handle and I recommend you don't try to reject either belief completely. Just take it slow."

Iruka looked up with slightly desperate eyes. "He will be alright won't he?"

"He's fine physically...well as fine as someone who's been hit by a car but his mental stability doesn't seem to be in a dangerous place. I honestly wasn't expecting to come across such a case but I can see some hope."

Naruto was half listening, half lost in an internal debate.

He didn't believe that his world was a fake figment of his imagination conjured up by some stupid coma. He _knew_ with ever fiber in his being that he was a shinobi.

But...

This place...Iruka who was hugging him so desperately couldn't. Naruto was a highly empathic person when he needed to be and he _knew_ Iruka. This could not be faked as well. He also knew the difference between reality and a Genjutsu...and this...cannot be a jutsu but that only served to make him more confused.

"I'll be honest with you Mr. Umino, I asked you to come in today to see if Naruto would recognise you as his homeroom teacher and it seems that he did." the doctor revealed.

Iruka looked up a little hopefully. "Does that mean anything?"

"Well, it means that whatever memories that have replaced his real ones are not completely independent in its creation. It seems that his subconscious used people already existing in his world and he had just...I suppose... _recycled_ them into his new world. This means that he knows you...fundamentally. It's also highly possible that he has done the same with many people he knows so the possibility that he will recover his memories are high."

The brown haired teacher looked down at the blonde in his arms who was now listening quietly without moving and sighed gently. "That's good."

Naruto could hear what they were saying but he didn't know what he was supposed to do anymore. He kept chanting in his head that he was a shinobi and that he was going to be Hokage. He is a ninja and he will become the leader of his village. He was a ninja and he was a member of team seven.

"I'm a shinobi." he whispered to himself in half intent.

The doctor and Iruka looked down at the blonde boy who was clinging to Iruka's waist like a life line.

"I-I'm a shinobi...I will become Hokage, I will protect those precious to me and I-I will make my..my...parents proud..." the poor boys voices cracked and it fell into a feeble whisper. "I will get my best friend back...he didn't b-br-break our bonds...he'll come back home...I promised to bring him back home Iruka-sensei, I p-promised..."

The blonde teenager buried his face in Iruka's shirt and wished dearly that it was the familiar green flak jacket he was so used to. He didn't cry but Naruto knew that if pushed he would not be able to hold back the tears of stress and confusion beginning to swell heavily in his chest.

"I-I'm not insane...they're real, I'm real..." he shook his head. "I'm not insane, I'm not insane... my memories a _real_." Neither man could see the distressed boys face but they saw his shoulders begin to shake. "Iruka...Iruka tell him...tell him..."

The scarred teacher just held the boy tighter in his arms and desperately tried to be the stronger one out of the two. The poor boy's murmuring of distressing words and promises were breaking the man's heart. He seemed so utterly against the idea that this was his real world that Iruka almost wanted to tell him he was right and that he could go back and dream of being a shinobi.

"I'll give you two a moment." the doctor gently said before disappearing through the door.

For a good couple of minutes Iruka pulled Naruto close to his chest and marveled at how much the boy had grown. A sad, bitter-sweet sentiment lingered as he held the boy together while trying to force him to stay dry-eyed.

Iruka had thought the boy had gone to sleep but when he looked down he saw a pair of deep blue eyes staring up at him with an intensity that startled Iruka to the core.

So similar but entirely different...those were not the same pair of eyes he remembered.

Naruto's eyes were not meant to be so deep in colour, they were meant to be much lighter...and also Iruka did not remember them looking so _fragmented._ Like shards of blue sea glass, glittering in a shallow pool of water.

These unfamiliar eyes stared up at Iruka and continued to stare till those blue pools began to water.

"Iruka." his named whispered tiredly on the boy's lips.

Distracted by a solitary tear that fell smoothly down the boys left cheek he moved his attention back to Naruto who remained staring at him with strange calm eyes. Clam but sad with a complexity that did not match the sunny, childish boy he knew.

"Yes?" Iruka whispered.

Without a waver Naruto continued to look up at him as if he was seeing the brown haired teacher for the first time. Oddly the teacher could almost believe it by the way he was staring at him.

"I know who I am."

Naruto watched the man that looked like Iruka nod with a feeling of melancholy but with also a bit stubborn optimism. The boy knew this man _might_ be an imposter but he knew that if that was true...he liked this imposter very much.

"But..." the boy continued. "I don't know you."

The blonde ninja almost cringed at the sudden widening of brown-doe eyes and felt impeccably guilty by the sad expression in the older man's face but continued on.

"I don't know you...I will not deny that. You and doc may be right...this all might be a figment of my imagination but...it's _my _imagination and my feelings that are attached to these _fake_ memories are _real_. I don't know you..." he gently brushed the scar on Iruka's nose with a small touch of fondness. "But I want to get to know you."

He watched as the man's eyes widened further by his surprising words.

"Y-you are a lot like _him..._my _Iruka_, the one who protected me for so many years." still hugging Iruka's waist he gave his teacher a familiar smile. "I hope you will try to get to know me as well."

The older man blinked at his honest words and he could see the strange complexity within his statement and also in his eyes. Iruka felt half inclined to believe that this boy was not Naruto but...someone else. As he looked down at the whiskered face that looked familiar but also suddenly different he couldn't help but smile back as the boy gave out a sleepy yawn.

"Sure, I'd love to." he smiled as he answered.

Watching the boy's eyelids begin to drop Iruka remember a little phrase his mother used to tell him before going to bed.

"Surīpunaruto, ochiba no oto ni suimin. " _Sleep Naruto, sleep to the sound of falling leaves._  
"Anata ga mezameru toki, watashi wa koko ni narimasu." _I will be here when you wake._

The teacher watched Naruto make himself comfortable as he gently tucked the boy back into his bed. With his eyes still closed he saw the boy reach out a grab Iruka's fingers in a sleepy daze.

"Ashita no kasai ni nokoshimasu." the boy mumbled quietly.

_Leaves to the fire of tomorrow. _

Burying himself deeper into his pillow he gave one last yawn as he muttered. "Watashi wa anata ni futatabi hyōji sa remasu."

_I will see you again._

With those last words uttered from his sleepy mumble, Naruto fell asleep.

Evidently the boy was not conscious enough to notice Iruka's wide-eyed stare at the sleeping figure, confusion marring the man's face.

The poem was a unique statement passed down in his family. It portrayed the closing of one day and the hopeful sentiments in facing a new one. It was a poem Iruka had only ever heard from his own mother years ago and he had never recited it anyone before today.

Yet the slumbering teenager he had known almost his entire life had just recited the end verses in fluent _Japanese_. A language Iruka _knew_ Naruto could not speak.

A small clock alarm went off somewhere in the background and the afternoon sun began to dim. One Umino Iruka left the hospital with an equivocal feeling blooming in his stomach which he tried his best to push to the back of his mind. He couldn't worry now, he had papers to mark.

* * *

After his short sleep Naruto lay awake in his hospital bed as the chime of midnight echoed in the distance. Feeling too taxed in both mind and body, he succumbed to his imagination.

Closing his eyes, Naruto pretended he was jumping through the large trees of Fire country. He could feel Sakura behind him, and Kakashi ahead, both close as they raced through the branches like a fleeting flock fire birds. Sasuke was next to him, with intense eyes directed in front. He could feel his feet push off each branch, a welcoming burn running through his limbs as he raced on to their destination, kunai and shuriken always at the ready.

But when he opened his eyes, all he saw was grey fibre walls and a blank unfamiliar ceiling. The phantom caress of wind and leaves on his face disappeared with his delusions.

Oh kami...where the hell was he?

He was supposed to be fighting in a war not lying in a hospital bed for injuries he didn't even have. He could not describe in words how disconnected and irritated he felt by knowing that he had just left his comrades to fight without him.

When he had woken up earlier that evening, Naruto felt so ridiculously crushed that the entire thing wasn't a messed up dream he concocted after being hit too hard in the head by flying rubble. He would almost prefer waking up in a torture room with a deranged Genjutsu expert jibing him to spill Konoha's secrets. At least it would still mean he could try to get back home...it meant he could actually _see _and _name_ his enemy. It would be better than this strange cage that had no chains but was equally as limiting.

The blonde ninja let out a tired sigh. He most certainly would have jumped out the window and escaped if he was back in Konoha...if he had chakra...if he had...

To be honest, Naruto had been angry with himself, angry that he was actually contemplating if the doctor was right.

Perhaps he really was an insane teenager that got hit in the head too hard and made up his own world of ninjas, demons, big breasted blondes and psychotic snakes.

He was angry with himself for even considering that as an option but...he could not ignore it. He was a ninja...he was to look _underneath the underneath_ and that meant he had to at least consider the possibility that he was just a very ill child with an imagination a little too wild and perhaps a little too sick. You had to question what kind of child would dream up a world where he was an ostracised demon container with dead martyr parents. It was more than a little masochistic.

Naruto had firm mental fortitude and his ideals and values were as immovable as the Hokage Mountain.

However, his love for those precious to him were stronger and seeing that man that looked so painfully like Iruka almost made his mountain crumble.

He had been one-hundred per cent sure that he was not nuts and it was just his lousy luck that landed himself in some horrible Genjutsu or and messed hallucinogen. But the moment he saw the man that looked like Iruka clutching onto his hand, Naruto's resolve had honestly began to waver.

He still believed his life as a shinobi was real but he could now no longer deny that the emotions he felt radiating off the Iruka imposter was real as well. He was already attached to the man like he was attached to _his Iruka-sensei._

What was he to do?

Naruto closed his eyes as he lay motionlessly in thin hospital sheets. Thinking was never his forte and so far it only caused him to second guess everything. How he hated confusion.

It was a few silent minutes later when Naruto began drifting off to a light sleep but he never achieved it as something caught his senses. He snapped one eyes open while the other remained closed and began scanning the room.

Insane or not, Naruto knew someone was watching him.

Naruto clutched onto the sharp pen he swiped earlier from one of the nurses and held it close to his thigh as a potential weapon. Still lying motionless on his back, he felt ridiculously vulnerable in his weak state and wished desperately to get back in shape.

Tension rose in his muscle as he waited for the strange presence to make a move and after a few agonising moments, it finally did.

A brief shadow shifted to the left in the dark corner plunged in darkness and Naruto could see a vague silhouette of a man standing there.

Adrenalin rushed through Naruto's body as he could finally see a potential enemy for the first time arriving here. Without a second to waste, Naruto threw his make-shift weapon expertly at the figure and jumped down into a defensive stance.

It was only a second later when the figure shifted away and Naruto attacked it with a series of none lethal strikes but he had known his physical state would be a great disadvantage to whoever it was that had been observing him.

So with that thought in mind Naruto found himself flat on his back with a heavy weight pinning him to the ground. The dim lamp light next to the cot finally reached his observer's face and Naruto was met with a pair or impossibly dark eyes.

Blue orbs widened in silent shock as he finally identified his assailant.

"_Itachi._"

* * *

**A/N:** I hope that was intriguing enough. I actually had a quite a bit of fun writing this and it seemed to flow better. Usually I'm a pretty constipated writer...

I apologize for any of my readers who actually read Japanese. I'm not confident that my translation of English to Jap is very good...I think there will be readers out there that are gonna laugh at me but I tried my best. ^^

As always, your comments are appreciated.

Keep it Cool

CADEL


	3. Chapter 3

**TITLE - **All That Binds Us

**FANDOM – **Naruto

**SUMMARY** - _A botched battle leaves a very confused Naruto who ends up in a world where Ninjas don't exist and he's forced to go to 'school' while trying to figure out what the heck is going on. He makes a strange ally to get back to his world again._

**GENRE - **General, Adventure, Friendship, Drama

* * *

CHAPTER 3

* * *

[No Sense]

**Previously:**

_The dim lamp light next to the cot finally reached his observer's face and Naruto was met with a pair or impossibly dark eyes._

_Blue orbs widened in silent shock as he finally identified his assailant._

_"Itachi."_

* * *

Naruto spent a good five seconds staring up at the raven haired man in utter confusion.

And it took another three seconds to find his voice.

"Itachi?" he repeated even more baffled.

It was only then that the older Uchiha released the blonde teen from the ground and gently pulled him up. Naruto complied silently as his mind tried to catch up with everything his eyes were observing.

"Wha -" Naruto's voice was swiftly muffled by Itachi's hand to stop any sound escaping.

Itachi held up his hands to sign the blonde to keep silent. Without a word he began to move out of the room and urging the boy to follow him.

Two shadowy figures silently swept through the empty halls of the hospital and descended down the emergency stairways till they reached a door leading to the outside. Naruto shivered as the cold night air seeped through his hospital shirt and pants but he did not complain as he continued to follow the older man out of the building.

A very strong part of Naruto was not all that keen about following this man so obediently without contemplating the risks, especially since Naruto had currently no idea where he was or what was happening. But the blonde also noticed another part of him that was just relieved to see another familiar face. Friend or foe.

By now they had already curbed another corner of a street and the hospital was no longer in view. Naruto continued to walk behind Itachi till they reached a black vehicle parked on the side of the road. Itachi opened the door and signalled for Naruto to get in and slid into the front seat. Naruto hesitated a little before getting into the strange carriage but complied once again. By the time he shut the door and was seated, Itachi suddenly reached over and strapped him down with retractable straps that clicked in the side of his waist.

A little clueless to what was happening, Naruto just remained uncharacteristically quite as he watched Itachi bring out a key and slip it into the ignition.

Naruto had to fight of a small shriek as a low, droning began to emanate from beneath him. Itachi payed no attention to the blonde who clutched onto his seat as the vehicle started moving forward.

The drive was quiet and neither shinobi spoke.

Naruto remained fascinated by the rushing movement outside his window and the flashing street lamps that zoomed past. He couldn't really see what the place looked like due to the fact that it was night time and there was no moon. But Naruto couldn't help but notice that it looked a _little_ bit like his village from close up. The view he had from his hospital window made the town look like rather large and somewhat alien but seeing from the street view showed some houses and apartments and telephone pole wires criss-crossing overhead.

Naruto slowly turned to Itachi for the first time since getting into the car and watched the man control the steering wheel with his usual blank expression.

The first glaring question in the blonde's head was, what in the heck was Itachi doing here?

The blonde could think up more than ten reasons why Itachi was the last person he'd ever expect to see here...or _see_ at all. Period.

He observed his silent companion and noted that Itachi looked healthy. A lot more than the last time he saw the man which was in a battle field being possessed by Kabuto. The man wore a simple dark jacket and trousers and had no jewellery.

Already reaching his limit of patience, Naruto finally spoke.

"Is it really you?"

A moment passed where there was only the sound of the engine then Itachi answered without looking away from the road. "Yes."

Naruto believed him but for cautionary reasons he asked, "Prove it."

The man paused and then spoke quietly. "You are Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto, shinobi of the Leaf, Jinchuuriki to Kyuubi no Kitsune." he continued to look ahead. "You wish to save my brother, Uchiha Sasuke. My words are all I can give you."

Naruto just nodded and sighed while running his hands through his hair. "The first thing I was going to ask you was where the hell are we...but...that ain't gonna get me anywhere." he sighed again. "So I'm just gonna ask if you'll be able to answer any of my questions at all."

There was another moment of silence then he stated honestly, "I will not be able to answer all of them, no."

"How did you did you find me?"

"It wasn't too difficult." was all Itachi said.

Naruto almost scowled at the less than satisfactory answer but asked another one instead. "What are _you _doing here in -" the blonde paused. "Actually could you just tell me what the hell we're in?"

Itachi blinked at the question then after another moment he answered. "That I can answer. We're in a car."

Naruto suddenly groaned. "So this is a _kar._ Huh...who knew? Suppose I should have guessed, I got hit by one just yesterday."

Itachi glanced over the muttering blonde once with a slight raised brow but said nothing.

"Is there a specific place we're going?" Naruto asked while looked out the front window with a queasy expression. "I think I'm starting to feel a little sick from this _thing._"

Itachi just nodded and continued driving.

It was only a few moments later that the older man stopped in front of a building that held series of apartments. The two ninjas swiftly climbed up the metal side stairs that crept up the side facade of building and entered through a window on the third level.

Naruto closed the window behind him as he jumped into the dark room after Itachi and inwardly mused at the fact that ninja never used doors. Itachi was no longer in front of him and Naruto assumed he was heading toward the light switch, he was proven correct when the room was suddenly lit with a yellow hue.

Naruto quickly scanned the room around him and found that the inside of the apartment was surprisingly large and well furnished, if not simple. A dark leather couch with a glass coffee table sat in the middle of the room with a simple mahogany rug on the floor. Naruto spied the start of the kitchen to his left and noted the short hallway to his right which he guessed led to the bedroom and bathroom.

There were no personal touches or unnecessary clutter anywhere. To be honest it looked like no one lived here at all and the inside was only marginally warmer than outside.

Itachi came out of the kitchen and brought out two mugs of tea with him. Naruto didn't remember when he had made them but the younger was grateful for the extra warmth in his hands.

The Uchiha sat down silently on the couch while Naruto slid down on the other side. The two was once again shrouded in silence as they sipped their tea. By the time they were done with their drinks Naruto was once again itching to break the silence.

Surprisingly it was Itachi who spoke first.

"Why where you in the hospital?"

Naruto paused for a moment to think over the conversation he had with his doctor. "They told me I'd been there for a week...in coma apparently. They said I was found in my room with a concussion to the head." Naruto sighed. "I dunno, I only remember from the moment I woke up in the hospital and then I freaked out a little when my doctors kept insisting that I was in Konoha! I mean I _know_ this ain't our village so I just assumed they were enemy ninja trying to pull the wool over my eyes." Naruto stared angrily down at his empty cup of tea and his frowned deepened. "But...this place is Konoha isn't it?" he almost growled. "Because these...people...whoever they may be, weren't lying. I know at least that much."

Itachi remained silent and observed the younger man with calculative eyes. "Why do you think that?"

The older man watched as Naruto's hands tightened around the cup in his hands. "Because I know when people lie to me and I'm even more aware when they're being sincere." his mind ventured to Iruka and the presence of the man which was like a father to him. "Besides, this place smells funny, did you notice?"

Itachi nodded. "Different but the same."

"Familiar but...not." Naruto added. "And there are people here that look like people we know Itachi, exactly the same yet I know they are not the people I grew up with. Who are they? Imposters, face stealers or is this entire thing a whacked out, super strong Genjutsu?"

Itachi didn't miss the almost expectant look on the boy's expression as he waited for Itachi to answer. "I do not know Naruto. It seems that you and I have landed in a very unique situation." the man placed his cup on the table and looked back at the blonde young man. "But I know this is no Genjutsu."

Naruto was silent for a few seconds but solemnly nodded. "It's real. This place is real." he sighed. "I guessed as much." he then glanced at Itachi. "How about you, how'd you wake up here?"

"The sound of the phone ringing was the first thing I heard. I found myself in this apartment alone." Itachi answered calmly.

Naruto noted that the man showed no sign of distress or confusion and wore a neutral expression. He envied that the man could stay calm in a situation where even the most poker faced shinobi would have face faulted.

"Is this your apartment?" he asked curiously as he took another look at the interior.

"It seems that it is." Itachi suddenly turned his face to look at Naruto and the blonde didn't miss that lack of red in his eyes. "I called you here tonight to collaborate data. Report all you remember before you woke up here."

Naruto immediately straightened as he searched his memory. "I was in a battle field with Sasuke and we were fighting but...I was distracted. I couldn't focus on both him and..." Naruto's eyes widened as he remembered. "There was a man! I remember there was a shadow that was watching me the entire time, I couldn't shake it off, it was so unnerving 'cause he wasn't even bothering to hide his presence at all but he made no moves either. He was just watching."

Itachi nodded. "It seems you and I have had similar experiences."

Naruto snapped his eyes to Itachi. "Did you meet the same man?"

"I believe so. I have no doubt that this cloaked man is the common connection we both have to this particular situation." he paused. "The man was a high level seal master."

Naruto nodded as he added to the report. "I identified that he was a resurrected shinobi as well. But...when I accused him of being allied with Kabuto he answered he wasn't."

Itachi remained silent as he processed that new information.

"Also...he did something to Sasuke." Naruto watched as Itachi waited. "I don't think it was anything bad though, he just said he transported your brother a couple of kilometers away."

The older man just nodded. "It seems our assailant can also utilise space-time jutsus."

"Do you think this has anything to do with Madara?" Naruto asked.

"I don't know. I'm afraid we simply do not have enough information."

Another minute of silence followed as both shinobi were lost in thought. Naruto was never one to think things through but he was now forced to start evaluating and analysing everything he could remember. His confusion did not lessen with Itachi's input but at least things were starting to clear up a little.

Itachi on the other hand had already deduced several things from their predicament and was mildly surprised but Naruto's lack of voice. He had expected the younger man to have had made a loud ruckus about their situation but instead he had been rather clam. He should have expected it though; it had been a long time since Itachi had seen the young man in the forest before his final battle with his brother. The boy had grown a great deal since then. Itachi could see evident worry and confusion in the boy's face but he could not blame him. Despite his calm demeanor, Itachi was just as confused as Naruto.

A sudden sigh escaped the blonde's mouth as he finally stood up. "Argh! I can't take this!"

Itachi almost smiled at the typical behavior, he was wondering when the boy would finally voice his frustration.

"Dammit! I can't think like this, it ain't getting me anywhere!" the young man began pacing around the living room. "I mean fine, I can accept that this place isn't a genjutsu but that only opens up more questions! Is this another village? How come they can make up such a huge lie? It's not even smart to _pretend_ this place is Konoha but...they're not lying but that means they're telling the truth! But's that's totally insane, they can't be telling the truth so...does that mean they're brainwashed?" Naruto paused then shook his head. "It doesn't matter 'cause nothing makes sense anymore!" he gave out a final frustrated huff and plopped himself back on the couch with a sigh. "Itachi...I just wanna go home."

Itachi remained silent as he watched the blonde tiredly rub his eyes. "So do I."

Naruto glanced over to the older Uchiha and he suddenly felt a little ashamed.

He wanted to see the familiar trees of Konoha and he wanted to see his friends and eat ramen with them but he realised it must be worse for Itachi. The man next to him had been a double agent from the young age of thirteen, who was sent on an almost impossible mission for almost a decade. If Naruto was homesick, Itachi must have been suffering far more and for much longer. Itachi probably knew what true loneliness felt like, and loneliness was something Naruto was unfortunately very familiar with.

Naruto looked away from the side profile of the raven haired man and felt gratitude that Itachi was at least here with him.

"We'll get back home." Naruto finally said with a quiet voice which still held strong conviction. The young blonde suddenly turned to the older ninja and gave him a wide Uzumaki grin.

Itachi just blinked at the sudden change in the blonde's mood but nodded with the smallest of invisible smiles.

Naruto suddenly stared at Itachi with a very concentrated look with his eyes squinted. "Ya know...you look really different without those red eyes of yours." he leaned back a little and tilted his head to the side. "You look more...human."

All the raven did was raise a single eyebrow at the comment but he did not say anything else.

"Would you mind if you lift up your shirt?" Itachi asked quiet suddenly.

Naruto almost cough at his own spit at the random request. "What?"

The older did not wait as his fingers were already clutching onto the ends of Naruto's hospital shirt.

"Whoa, whoa what are you doing?" he almost squeaked out.

Itachi just continued lifting up his pale blue shirt till dark eyes were intently observing his stomach. After a few seconds Itachi pull the blondes shirt back down. "Kyuubi is not present in you is he?"

Naruto suddenly lost his all traces of his previous mood as he clutched onto his stomach with wide, worried eyes. In all the confusion that had bombarded the young ninja for the past two days, Naruto had completely forgotten about his long term tenant.

He really couldn't feel the fox at all.

"I-I can't feel him." Naruto was sure his face had become a shade paler with the sudden realisation.

He sat there for a minute trying to feel the familiar demonic presence within his body but all he found was muted thrumming of his heartbeat.

An acute feeling of coldness washed through him as Naruto finally came to the conclusion that the demon was no longer jailed within him. Did that mean it was running amuck somewhere outside? Had it been extracted or was there something completely wrong with his senses?

The fact that Naruto had recently gained complete control over Kyuubi made his disappearance even more impossible.

"No, no, no, this isn't supposed to happen!" The young teen tried his best to focus chakra into his seal but found that nothing happened just like before. "Where is he?"

Itachi who was still sitting in the coffee table in front of him was silently observing the young man while connecting series of dot in his mind.

"Naruto look at me." Itachi commanded quietly. Naruto looked at the raven man with visible worry in his blue eyes as the older man closed his eyes to think. "I called you here tonight to collaborate data as I had mention before but it was for also another reason that I needed to see you." he paused to let the boy take in the information. "I have spent the past two days trying to gather information about this place and the people here. I have analysed and evaluated all that I have observed and I have come up with several conclusion but I realised I needed your help to truly solidify one of my deductions."

Itachi looked down at his own hands as if trying to find something in them. "I assume you have realised that you cannot use chakra."

Naruto nodded at his statement. "Yeah, I can't feel anything at all since I woke up. To be honest it's the thing that's making me the most...uncomfortable."

The raven nodded. "It seems that you and I have had the same problem but I'm starting to believe that this is not a temporal issue." he looked at Naruto in the eye to convey his seriousness. "Naruto, we don't have chakra _at all_."

Itachi watched at the boys faced blanched and his eyes widen but surprisingly the boy just sucked in his breath and frowned. "I was hoping you wouldn't say that."

"I cannot use my Sharingan which makes sense if chakra manipulation is impossible." He explained quietly.

Naruto nodded with a strained kind of concentration on his face as some things were beginning to become clear. "So...you needed me to confirm your theories? How?"

"You just did." he pointed to Naruto's stomach. "The absence of chakra can be explained by several things. Disease, psychological illusions, mind blocks, chakra suppressors etc. However Kyuubi is a demon and the very existence of such a creature does not comply easily with the laws that hold humans together. Originally thought to be beings of divine then later on in history as entities of wild energy, demons cannot simply disappear. Especially from a Jinchuuriki host."

Naruto looked back down to his hand which was still clutching his stomach and couldn't help but feel a little _empty._ He honestly didn't know how to feel about the fur ball's disappearance. The demon had been a horrible stigma that had been a part of Naruto's life since birth but it was also a constant and the blonde could admit that it made him a stronger person by having to bare such a burden.

"So, the fur ball's disappearance means what?" Naruto asked quietly without looking away from his stomach.

Itachi didn't speak immediately but remained quiet to think for a moment. He eventually looked back down at his own hands and answered, "It means that these bodies we're residing are not our own."

A moment of silence followed which was broken by Naruto's loud voice. "Say what?"

"I mean exactly what I said. These bodies are not ours." Itachi patiently repeated.

The blonde Jinchuuriki sputtered for a moment as he kept glancing surreptitiously down at his own body then at Itachi and back at his own while trying to wrap his mind around such a bizarre concept.

"But that's stupid, how the hell would these not be our bodies?"

Naruto couldn't help but associate anything to do with false bodies to Orochimaru and his vile experiments. The young ninja shuddered at the idea of being stuck in someone else's skin.

"Naruto, I'm dead." The words were said so horribly blunt that Naruto felt like he had been slapped.

"Oh yeah..." he mumble while scratching his whiskered cheeks in discomfort. "I suppose what you're saying now is starting to make sense." he sighed and took a really good look at Itachi.

Now that Naruto was reminded of Itachi's dead status he wanted to kick himself for missing such an obvious clue.

The last time he had seen Itachi was when he had been with Nagato and both had been resurrected by Kabuto. Even then, undead shinobi had very distinct black sclera's that were an unmistakable sign or their resurrection. Naruto now looked at Itachi's eyes and found then to be completely normal shade of black on white.

Naruto nodded as he swallowed another unbelievable shock down.

"Alright, fine but if these aren't our bodies then...whose are they?"

Itachi gave a little shrug. "They are Naruto's and Itachi's."

The boy just blinked and gave the raven a flat look. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"These bodies belong to Naruto and Itachi." he repeated patiently. "It seems you and I have - for lack of better terms - _hijacked_ their identities and their bodies."

"Say what!" Naruto was feeling sick from the second connotation to Orochimaru for the night. "Wait, are you saying that these people were actually _people?_ Like with lives and family and friends and we just _stole_ their bodies?"

"I don't think you and I had much of a choice in the matter." he responded calmly. "You landed yourself in the body of a young comatose teenager with the same name as yourself, while I have assumed the identity of healthy, twenty-two year old, Uchiha Itachi."

It was about then that Naruto truly began to feel sick.

The idea that he was occupying the body of a living, breathing human being without their consent made him feel extraordinarily nauseous.

"This - this person that I'm in...Does he...does he feel anything? Is me being here mean he's dead?" Naruto asked quietly after he swallowed the bile down in his throat.

"I do not know." he looked at the ill face of the blonde man. "But what I do know is that, while I am in this body, I am technically no longer dead."

Naruto looked up to the older man. "I - I guess that's good." the young man frowned as another thought occurred to him. "But I'm still confused, these bodies, these identities, why do they have the same names as us and the same face? It's like we've landed in a place where there are doubles of everyone."

Itachi nodded at the blonde. "Your words are actually more close to my own conclusion than you'd expect."

Naruto did not underestimate Itachi's mind, he was a prodigy and a genius in both physical prowess and intellect. His mind only rivaled that of Shikamaru, Kakashi, Tsunade and very few others. Naruto knew Itachi would figure out their current situation despite how impossible it seemed to Naruto.

Naruto scrunched up his face as he forced himself to concentrate. "Whatever that man did to us had something to do with his seals. I remember the ink seals just climbing all over my body like chains, pinning me down, then he did something and all I saw was white. The next thing I knew I was in hospital." the blonde hummed as he thought. "Jiraiya always said that seals were by far the most flexible of the ninja arts and that they required minimal chakra. But whatever this man did wasn't some small thing. I could feel enormous chakra to the very last moments."

Itachi looked away in thought. "Seals have a high propensity to be capable of more extraordinary feats than Jutsus." Itachi explained. "I am not familiar with seals but deducing from what you told me about the way he transported Sasuke away so effortlessly, it has cut down my list to only a few theories."

Itachi brought forth an envelope from his pocket and showed Naruto the front.

Naruto took the envelope and looked at the writing. Itachi observed the boy had his eyes squinted at the words not being able to really grasp it.

"It-Ita-Itachi U-Uchi-ha. Itachi Uchiha!" the seemed pleased that he figured the words out. "Hey cool, so does this mean that this letter is actually to the _other Itachi_?"

The raven just nodded. "There are other personal objects in the man's possession which helped a great deal in figuring out our unique situation. Both you and I are now living someone else's life, complete with a unique identity."

"Awesome! Do you think I have my own stuff as well?" Naruto asked excitedly.

Itachi just nodded.

Naruto seemed momentarily excited by the notion of exploring a new room and home.

_Home._

For a moment Naruto felt a little happy about being in the body of another Naruto. Maybe he had a home with a family. Actual blood relations.

But somehow, Naruto knew not to get his hopes up. This was not his body and this was not his life. It was someone else's and all that came with his new identity would never truly be his.

Naruto suddenly leaned back against the dark couch and sighed while dragging his hand down his face. "Man...This is all too much."

The silenced that followed was abruptly interrupted by a low growl from Naruto's stomach.

"Heh...um, I know it's a little rude but you don't happen to have something to eat do you?" the boy asked while rubbing the back of his neck, a little embarrassed. "Hospital food is always disgusting no matter where I am, can't stomach the stuff."

Itachi just silently got up and walked into the kitchen with an eager Naruto following him. It wasn't long until the raven man had all his kitchen pantries thoroughly searched by the hungry teen and found Naruto already boiling water.

It was only a few minutes later that Naruto was sitting on the kitchen bench, slurping down a cup on instant noodles. The boy momentarily stopped at glanced at Itachi who had sat himself down on a kitchen stool. "Hey, do you want one?"

The older ninja politely shook his head and refused. The blonde just shrugged and continued breathing in his noodles down.

"Ah...that was great. Not as good as ramen but compared to the dry stuff they fed me in the hospital, it was gold." he patted his stomach.

Honestly he was still a little hungry but he didn't want to ask for more from the older Uchiha. He had already done enough for the night.

Looking back at the man he suddenly gave a honest smile.

"You know what Itachi? I'm real glad you're here, I don't think I would have been able to figure half the things you've helped me with." his smile widened into a grin. "Even in this whacked out situation, it's pretty cool that we ain't alone. I'm glad you're here."

Itachi looked at the boy with the ridiculously infectious smile and couldn't help but feel that he was right.

Lost in an entirely different world, without a clue where they were or what they were going to do...at least they weren't alone.

* * *

**A/N:** A chapter dedicated to getting some things explained to poor, confused Naruto and also to you my lovely readers ^^

I've never written Itachi before and as one of my most favorite characters, I hope I hadn't completely failed.  
Not everything about their circumstance has been explained in this chap but tell me what you guys think.

Thank you for reading.

CADEL


	4. Chapter 4

**AUTHOR** - Cadel

**FANDOM - **Naruto

**SUMMARY** - _A confused Naruto finds himself in a world where ninjas don't exist. Being a civilian school boy has never been so hard for the 16yr old shinobi as he and Itachi ally together to try and find their way back home._

**CHARACTERS - **Naruto, Itachi

**GENRE - **General, Adventure, Angst, Friendship

* * *

CHAPTER 4

* * *

[Settling In]

Umino Iruka was a man of detail and had a deceptively vigilant eye.

It was to be expected from someone who constantly worked with children that were more akin to devil spawn than anything else.

So it was no surprise that he had kept a very close eye on the blonde teenager climbing up the apartment stairs in front of him.

After two days since his first visit, Iruka had finally convinced the doctors that Naruto was well enough to be back on his feet. The staff seemed more than happy to let the boy go, seeing as he had been moaning and complaining about being discharged for the past couple of days to the point that no one wanted to be near the blonde prankster. Of course Iruka knew that Naruto's pranks on the staff was just a way to vent off boredom and guessed it was probably for the best to get him away from the hospital.

Iruka admitted that Naruto had acted normal when he came to pick him up, so normal that the teacher had almost forgotten about the boy's memory problem. He was vibrant and alert with hardly a sign that indicated that he was a memory confused teenager that had just recently awoken from a coma.

Naruto had greeted Iruka was a sunny familiarity that made the scarred teacher's day a little more brighter and he couldn't stop himself to hope that the blonde had regained his memories.

Of course that fell out the window when Iruka asked him if remember where his apartment was.

Naruto shook his head and said he didn't know he even had an apartment. There was a very distinct weight of disappointment fluttering in Iruka's stomach which he tried his best to cover up with a smile as he offered to take the boy there.

The boy remained unusually quiet during the car ride to his apartment. The blonde stared out the window and watched the houses and streets pass them by with a strange sort of aloof concentration. Naruto's eyes darted from tree to tree and house to house as if mapping them permanently into his brain. He continued to be silent till they were climbing up to the fifth floor of the apartment block.

"Well here it is." Iruka brought out a key and opened the numbered door. "Your apartment."

He watched as Naruto reluctantly walked inside and he moved no further than a few steps. Looking left then right, Iruka watched as Naruto inspected the home he couldn't remember ever living in. Oddly enough the boy spent a great deal of time observing the ceiling which puzzled the teacher.

"Well, your room is the last one down the hall and the one next to it is the bathroom. The kitchen is combined with living room and a single bathroom with toilet. You do the laundry downstairs on ground floor." Iruka explained.

Naruto disappeared into his room and came back out after a few minutes of exploring.

A strange look came over his face. "Wow...I didn't think I was this clean."

Indeed the apartment was _very_ clean, a lot more than the blonde would have thought it would be.

Iruka smiled and shook his head. "That's because _I_ cleaned it idiot. Believe me when I tell you that it's usually a total mess."

"Now that sounds more like me." Naruto grinned finally.

Iruka relaxed a little after seeing him smiled and assured himself that the boy would get better. He gave Naruto the keys to his door.

"Here, these are your keys, I have a copy of my own that you gave me a while ago, so if you find me in here now and then, don't be surprised."

"Alright cool." he took the keys and shoved into his pocket.

With a sly look, Naruto sleazed off into the small kitchen and began searching through the cupboards and pantries and after a moment of rummaging Iruka finally heard a loud whoop.

"Hell yeah! A whole stack of Ramen cups! Hey it even had sea food flavor, haven't had that one in ages." Naruto exclaimed from the kitchen excitedly. "Wow, that's a relief, 'cause if I came back and found no ramen I would have refused to believe this was my place."

Iruka smiled at the familiar enthusiasm Naruto was displaying towards the loved noodles.

Perhaps the boy hadn't completely forgotten everything about himself.

"When I heard you had woken up, I restocked your supply. Usually I wouldn't let you have so much but I thought why not just this once?" Iruka explained.

He was thanked with a giant tackle to the ground with a heavy Naruto hugging him. "Thanks Iruka, you're the best!"

Iruka just sighed and patted him on the back before grinning and pushing him off. "Well, I think that's everything, if you need any help just call me. Oh that reminds me - " Iruka pulled out the small handheld device from his back pocket. "here, this is your mobile phone, I had it charged. I know you don't remember much but all your contact numbers are in here."

Naruto stared at the object in his hands and nodded as he inspected. "Alright...do you live close by?"

"I live a couple of streets down, I'll show you some other time." Iruka answered.

Naruto walk to the window in his living room. He opened the latch and pulled up the glass pane, leaning over on his elbows and let the fresh air breeze into the room as the blonde silently watched the view from his apartment.

Iruka was still observing the boy.

As mentioned before, Iruka had a very keen eye and despite how relaxed Naruto seemed to be, Iruka could tell there was an odd alertness in the way Naruto's blue eyes were roaming over the horizon that was anything but leisurely. It looked like he was trying to look for something in the distance, like there was supposed to more in the sky than just blue and white.

With a worried gleam in the brown eyes of the teacher, he asked. "Naruto, will you really be fine by yourself? I can stay with you for a couple of days if you'd like."

Naruto turned around from the window and blinked at the teacher. "No it's fine, thanks for the offer but I think I just need to get familiar with things." he rubbed the back of his neck. "Besides I don't wanna bother you, I know you have children to teach and grades to mark."

Iruka perked up at the sudden hope that Naruto had remembered something. The teacher carefully paused before asking, "You remember my job?"

Naruto blinked again at the sudden question. "Er...you're a teacher?"

After a few quiet seconds Iruka nodded, "I am."

He gave a reluctant pause then asked. "Was I...a teacher to you...in your world?"

Naruto was honestly not expecting the teacher to outright ask him of his world...well the world Iruka thought he had 'dreamed' up.

What should he say to him? How much was he supposed to reveal and did it actually matter if Iruka knew things about a world that he would never see? Was there a danger in that?

After a pause the blonde decided for the simple truth.

"Yeah, you were." he nodded. "You taught me for many years, up till I was twelve."

Iruka nodded at the explanation.

Naruto hesitated but asked, "Are you my teacher here?"

Iruka blinked then thought to himself for a moment.

"Not anymore, I was your homeroom teacher back in elementary school then I became your permanent teacher for grade three to six. When you were twelve you started high school with the rest of your year and I was no longer your teacher." the teacher then smiled. "But you still visited me when you had the time so we kept in touch."

Naruto returned his smile with one of his own.

"Well, I'll be leaving now." he opened the door and turned back around with a stern expression. "Now, don't exert yourself too much, you need to rest properly and don't hesitate to call if you need help, I won't be too far away."

Naruto gave a huge grin as he lifted up his thumb. "No problem Iruka! Dattebayo!"

And with that, Iruka left the apartment and shut the door.

When he got outside the teacher stopped and took a breather.

He turned around to look back at the door that divided him and the blonde teen.

Naruto...was not the same.

That much Iruka knew from the few minutes he had spoken with him and now he was more confused than before.

It was a huge shock for the teacher when the doctor informed him about the boy's condition but Iruka could only feel happy that he had at least woken up.

But the situation truly sunk in when Naruto had told Iruka straight up that he didn't know who he was. It hurt him in a way that Iruka was not prepared for but he knew he could not blame the child for that.

But now another oddity had caught Iruka's attention.

The boy was entirely unaware that he was speaking two languages. Well at least Iruka was unaware that he _could _speak two languages at all.

Iruka had addressed Naruto in English when he picked him up from the hospital and when he was driving them both to his apartment. But when Iruka had asked if Naruto had remembered what his job was, the teacher had asked the question in informal _Japanese._

Which Naruto had answered back automatically in the same language and continued the rest of their conversation in Japanese till Iruka had left. From what he could tell, the blonde found the words very natural and he didn't need to think about the pronunciations or accent.

Iruka felt a little bad for tricking him but now the teacher was extremely confused from what he had discovered.

He frowned in frustration and worry. He had no idea if the boy would regain his memories or if he would be okay from the sudden shift to normalcy when he didn't even remember what _normal_ was.

And how was it that the boy could speak an entirely different dialect that he hadn't had any knowledge of prior to his coma?

By the time Iruka reached his car he glanced back up to the fifth floor of the apartment block and sighed. He will have to try and help Naruto the best he could, no matter how confusing the next couple of weeks will be.

Just before he started the engine, Iruka frowned in confusion at something the boy had said.

What on earth was _Dattebayo_?

* * *

As soon as Iruka had left, Naruto sat down on the soft brown sofa and sighed.

He didn't know if it was the best thing to have revealed his bilingual talent to Iruka but Naruto knew that if someone should know, it would be the brown-eyed teacher.

Naruto had to admit that he was rather surprised by sneaky manner of which Iruka had tried to confirm his suspicions. He'd actually tricked him into automatically replying back to him in his desired tongue. The blonde grinned to himself; perhaps _this_ Iruka was a lot more like _his_ Iruka than he first thought.

It was only recently that Naruto had come to the sudden realisation that he was not speaking his familiar language.

It came rather slowly to him while one of the doctors was reprimanding him for messing with the coffee maker. The words seemed to slow down on him while they came out of his mouth and he couldn't seem to point out what was so strange about them.

It took almost a ridiculous amount of time to find that the sounds that were being made by his very own mouth seemed completely alien...yet he understood every word.

The poor blonde spent almost an entire afternoon wording out his sentences in long drawled speeches, trying to string out the strange pronunciations and vowels.

The doctors probably thought he was retarded on top of brain damaged.

Naruto only seemed to figure out a lot later that the entire time he had spoken with anyone at all, he had been talking in the native tongue of this world...but the boy also knew that he could easily switch back to Japanese anytime he wanted.

Even now the new skill baffled Naruto as he didn't understand how he could suddenly speak two languages when he knew only one.

Having his brain fried from over thinking, Naruto decided he honestly didn't care and remained speaking the unfamiliar tongue...he had guessed that it was the language the_ other Naruto_ had spoken and should _continue_ to speak it for everybody else's comfort.

Naruto sighed again and dragged his palm over his face.

One discovery after another, one shock to swallow down before another one popped up.

Glancing around the unfamiliar apartment Naruto unconsciously tried to find clues to who the _other Naruto_ was. There wasn't much in the main room but Naruto's bedroom had a few posters and a couple knick knacks here and there.

But there were no pictures in sight, not a single personal artifact that indicated that the boy who had lived here had any friends or _family_.

Naruto had been tempted to ask Iruka about the boy's family but decided against it. From the single room apartment and the supposed history with Iruka...Naruto had pretty much guessed that the boy had been and orphan just like him.

The blonde jinchuuriki wondered why that even in an entirely different world, _Naruto_ had to have such similarly lonely lives.

Shaking himself out of the unnecessarily depressing thoughts, Naruto stood up and began walking through all the rooms, memorising and cataloguing everything he could see. He inspected the locks on the doors and windows and checked the electricity and hot water. Afterwards Naruto mentally made several possible escape routes if needed.

He may have not chakra and he may be stuck as being a civilian but Naruto was still a shinobi and his training still heavily ingrained into his daily habits. He was adamant to not lose them while being here.

After downing five ramen cups, Naruto found there was nothing more to do so he grabbed his keys and decided to explore the pseudo-Konoha. If he was going to be here, he might as well get to know the place.

Due to habit, Naruto found that he almost jumped out the window but quickly stopped before plunging face first to his death. Man, it was annoying not being able to draw upon his ninja strength, his body was so weak, much weaker than he would ever dare let it become but he had to remind himself that this was in a civilian's body. Not his own.

Vowing under his breath that he'll get his body back in shape when he could, Naruto left the apartment.

Before he reached the exit, a balding man with a pot belly blocked his way and stared disdainfully at Naruto.

The boy stared back at the man and uncertainly asked, "Yes?"

"Your rent."

Naruto blinked. "Huh?"

The balding man didn't look pleased at his answer. "I said your rent. I hear you got out of the hospital so I delayed your payment but don't think you got away with it just because you were sick." He drawled out unpleasantly. "I expect two hundred by the end of next week."

"Two hundred!" Naruto sputtered. The man wasn't listening to the boy's complaints as he just walked away without bothering to look back.

Naruto was staring at man with an incredulous expression.

Damn, now he had to pay rent for an apartment that wasn't even his? With a grumble, the blonde stomped out of the door.

Walking around the unfamiliar streets helped the boy calm down a great deal. Naruto walked a couple of blocks in all directions and tried memorising an internal map in his brain. He covered a couple of kilometers in three hours but he found that he was tiring out a lot faster than he had anticipated. His legs ached from overuse and after a few more minutes Naruto reluctantly admitted that he needed a rest.

Finding a nice shady park bench, Naruto sat himself down and took a moment to breath.

The boy was really starting to resent having such an untrained body but he supposed that it was expected. He at least managed to exercise a little and give his weakened legs a bit of a workout. He also noted that despite the weak muscles, his body had pretty good stamina. Although Naruto expected that he'll probably have incredibly sore muscles tomorrow morning.

Naruto sat under the dappled light of a tree and took in his surroundings. The town didn't really look anything like Konoha…but there a few things here and there that reminded him of his village.

For one, there seemed to be a lot of trees and now and then Naruto would see people walking past him that looked vaguely familiar. The way the town had been structured architecturally looked very different to the old but sturdy, rustic buildings of Konoha but the telephone wires crisscrossing overhead made him miss home.

The lack of training grounds and familiar ninja shops would be greatly missed but the laid-back friendly atmosphere seemed to have transferred in this world too. A couple of strangers had already waved and greeted Naruto as he had walked past them.

It was kinda nice here but it was undeniable that Naruto missed his home.

A presence shifted to his left and Naruto turned his head to see who it was.

"Itachi? How'd you find me?"

Itachi had placed himself silently next to Naruto on the bench and continued looking forward. "It wasn't too difficult."

Naruto rolled his eyes at the same answer he gave him a couple days ago.

Both men remain silent as they rested beneath the tree and watched various children and families play in the park. It was well past noon but there was a cool breeze running through from the east as it carried bits of leaves in the wind.

Naruto watched as Itachi swiftly caught a leaf from the air and inspect it.

"It's a little nice here…" Naruto finally commented, breaking their silence. Itachi said nothing. "But…it's not the same eh?"

The raven let the leaf go and it drifted away with the rest of the other blowing leaves.

"Have you settled in?" Itachi asked randomly.

"Yeah, searched the place after Iruka left. The boy's sixteen, goes to Konoha High and has no living blood relations I know of. My place is a little farther from the hospital than yours and it goes in the opposite direction, I'll give you the address later."

The older Uchiha nodded but said nothing.

"Also, Iruka knows about me speaking Japanese." The blonde ninja frowned at Itachi. "Why the hell didn't you tell me about the whole language thing when we met the first time? I had to spend an entire afternoon untangling my mind from trying to figure out why I had two versions of saying 'cat'."

"I figured you would find out eventually." He stated calmly.

"Yeah well, that didn't help." Naruto sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Besides, how come we can speak their lingo?"

Itachi looked up at the branches hanging above. "By manifesting these bodies, we inherited their physical skills and muscle memory. But that also means we have their brains, not our own and that means these brains have an entirely unique _wiring_ to our own minds. They have synaptic connections that you and I have never developed but they also do not have many things we have gained as shinobi."

Naruto's eyes squinted as he thought to himself. "So you're saying that we can talk their language because these brains in our heads have already learned them?"

The raven nodded. "What they know, we know."

"Hey…does this mean we get their memories as well?"

Itachi seemed to think about this for a moment. "Yes, theoretically but so far I have not experience any insight into this bodies memories."

"Hmm, me neither." Naruto looked down at his legs which were starting to cramp up. "Damn, this body is weak…I dunno what the kids been doing but he really let himself go. I've barely got any muscles at all."

Naruto suddenly got an idea. "Hey Itachi, wanna train with me? We both need to get back in shape"

The blonde ninja never really saw the benefits of training with Itachi 'cause for most time he thought of the elder Uchiha…it had never been pleasant things. But now that Naruto knew about the true nature of Itachi's past, all he saw was someone who was incredibly powerful and intelligent, someone he could ally and train with.

Now Naruto was rather excited about the idea of learning with the powerful shinobi and he hoped he could learn some awesome techniques from him.

Naruto was about to ask again but found Itachi was already walking away.

"Hey! Where are you going!"

Itachi raised his hand in a silent wave and put his hands back in his pockets.

Naruto grumbled. "Damn Uchihas."

* * *

**A/N:** Not much happened in this chap but there was a bit more insight to their situation.

I'll try to update as soon as possible.

CADEL


	5. Chapter 5

**AUTHOR** - Cadel

**FANDOM - **Naruto

**SUMMARY** - _A confused Naruto finds himself in a world where ninjas don't exist. Being a civilian school boy has never been so hard for the 16yr old shinobi as he and Itachi ally together to try and find their way back home._

**CHARACTERS - **Naruto, Itachi

**GENRE - **General, Adventure, Angst, Friendship

* * *

CHAPTER 5

* * *

[Intruders]

Blue eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling then turned his head to the side to look at the digital clock beside him.

_1:47_ AM

The dim half-moon illuminated the small bedroom as the restless teenager laid still in his bed, waiting and wishing he could fall asleep. He managed to drift off for about half an hour but Naruto found himself sprawled on the floor, tangled up in sheets and after that he couldn't fall back to sleep.

Naruto had spent two nights in his apartment and each night the blonde felt the quietness of night bringing many unwanted thoughts into his head, thoughts that evaded him through the busy hustle of the day but were amplified into his brain during night. Naruto was still in the process of trying to adjust his mind around his situation but he was beginning to find that perhaps his _unique_ circumstance will take more than a few nights to get used to.

Turning to his side, Naruto stared out the small window and picked out a few twinkling stars, winking at him.

Naruto had spent the last two days exploring as much of the town as he could and spent a great majority of time trying to establish an understanding of whose identity he was living.

The ninja looked down at his hands which were _not_ his own and notice the identical resemblance in the build and structure of the digits. Despite the anatomical similarities, Naruto found his fingers to be _too_ smooth and his skin no longer felt course and rough from use. The hands he held up in the moonlight were not his strong shinobi hands but that of a stranger - smooth, soft and delicate.

The fact was, Naruto didn't have a clue who he was supposed to be.

It was almost ridiculous how little information there was about the blonde boy he inhabited. There was next to nothing on his birth, barely any personal artifacts or pictures of both friends and family. The boy was practically a ghost.

He hoped that his raven companion was having better luck then he was.

He sighed and continued to stare back at the plain ceiling.

Naruto hadn't seen or communicated with Itachi for two days and despite knowing that the older ninja had others things to do, Naruto mildly wished to see the familiar face.

His thoughts were broken abruptly by the sound of an odd noise coming from his front door.

Naruto pulled out a kitchen knife he hid under his pillow and slowly edged out of his room and towards his front door. He peeked through the spy-hole and found nothing but discovered the sound was coming from someone messing with his door knob.

Was it a thief, perhaps a burglar? Debating for a few moments, Naruto finally opened the door while concealing the knife in his sleeve.

As soon as the door opened by a fraction, the person on the other side barged right in, almost knocking Naruto over. The sudden movement didn't catch him off guard but instead made him react.

Naruto quickly grabbed the figure that had violently moved into him and flipped them onto the ground and pinned them down in less than two seconds. The moonlit gleam from the knife's blade shone dimly in the moonlight as he held it to the intruder's neck at a dangerously close length.

"What the hell!" yelled his intruder "Hey kid get off me!"

Naruto blinked and found his wriggling assailant to be startling smaller than what he expected and...There was a lot of skin as well.

Naruto found himself pinning a young woman in her twenties, dressed in skimpy, black outfit that honestly had more holes in it than cheese. She had bright, dye-red hair that was cut at a shoulder length and a heart tattoo on her left breast which was only _just_ covered.

Fighting down a blush at the intimate position he found himself in, Naruto quickly collected his mind and avoided looking at her chest area as he remained pinning her to the ground.

"Oi! I said get off before I kick you where it hurts!" she threatened.

Not a moment later she had actually attempted to knee Naruto in the crotch but was expertly blocked and pushed back down by his own body.

It seemed the girl had suddenly realised for the first time, the sharp blade touching her throat.

"Why are you trying to break into my home?" Naruto asked quietly into her ear. He was making his voice hushed down because he didn't want to make too much noise but he ended up sounding unintentionally threatening.

"Naruto?" asked the now less shrilly voice. "What are you doing?"

She seemed to have stopped struggling and was now staring at the hand that was pressing a knife to her throat. She didn't seem scared but just rather alarmed.

Naruto frowned at her. Did she know him; did she know the _other Naruto_? By the way she addressed him; it seemed that was the case.

Reluctantly Naruto got off her and slid the knife back up his night sleeve. If she was indeed a colleague of his, then he may have slipped up a little. Trying to correct his mistake Naruto scratched his head and offered her an apology.

"Er...sorry." he said half-heartedly.

The spiky red-haired woman got off the ground without missing a beat as Naruto shut the door, his eyes never leaving her.

"Jeeze, what's got your panties in a twist?" she murmured swinging her bag over her shoulder.

"It was dark, didn't see you." Naruto explained hoping she would believe the lie. He had to act like he knew her.

She gave the blonde a flat look but ignored it and slumped on his couch without asking. She took off her high leather boots and took out a bottle of whisky and made herself comfortable.

Naruto was still watching his unknown guest in puzzlement.

He had no clue who she was but it was evident that he _should_ know. Was she someone Naruto had to tread carefully around or was she a non-threat? Looking at the girl Naruto couldn't help but think she looked more like a stripper than a young girl.

"Er...not to sound rude but you kinda came a little late so unless you've got a reason, I want some shut-eye." Naruto said with a light yawn hoping it looked natural.

"Yeah, yeah alright, I know the baby wants some sleep." she droned without looking at him.

Naruto _was_ tired and it seemed that the little exertion of energy had done more for his need for rest. "Right so what do you want?" he added a little more bluntly than he intended.

The girl gave Naruto a strange look which made Naruto tense.

Did he say something wrong? Did he do something to give him away? Her mildly surprised expression made Naruto wish he knew his situation better.

"Jeeze Naru, don't you wanna see Kitty tonight?" she smirked as she shimmied closer to him and licked his ear. Actually licked his _ear_.

Naruto thanked the lord that the room was dark so she couldn't see his red face.

"Why you so mean tonight? You always wanna see Kitty, always lapping behind me like a love struck puppy." she leaned over from behind and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, effectively giving a very detailed impression of her breast on his back. "Don't tell me you outgrew me."

Naruto stood frozen at her teasing and the boy suddenly wondered what the hell kind of people the _other Naruto_ knew. Why on earth would a sixteen year old boy be affiliating with a bloody stripper chick with the name of _Kitty_?

"Why baby so tense? You usually wait for me to return don't you?" she purred teasingly. "Aren't you happy to see Kitty?"

The poor ninja was utterly at loss to what he was supposed to do. He was pretty sure that the girl didn't mean anything by what she was saying...well he hoped she didn't.

"Er..." he stuttered unintelligently while going another shade of red. "I think you should get off me."

His voice was surprisingly steady and firm but his face was nothing but red. Once again he thanked kami that the room was dark.

The girl stopped her teasing and suddenly drew away. She moved in front of him and poked him on the nose. "Aw...you're no fun tonight, hardly the reaction I usually get."

Naruto suddenly let out the breath he was holding and sighed in relief as she moved away. That was by far the scariest thing he had to deal with in a long time. He silently thanked that Sakura hadn't been here to see that.

Naruto scratched his head awkwardly as he tried to start a conversation topic that might shine some light to his situation. "So...what are you doing here so late?"

Kitty suddenly took a sip from her whisky flask and leaned against the kitchen counter. "I know it's a little late but I kinda forgot about the payment but its better late than never eh?"

Naruto was now officially confused. "Payment?"

Kitty waved dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, you'll get your money, hang on, hang on." she began rummaging in her bag then pulled out a bundle of cash then chucked it towards the blonde who caught it instinctively.

Naruto stared down at the large amount of money in his hands and stared dumbly at the amount. There was _a lot_ there and he looked up at the girl in confusion.

Why on earth was she receiving hundreds of dollars from the girl in a stripper outfit? He blinked and couldn't help but think this entire situation was starting to look real shady.

"Er..."

She ignored him again. "Yeah, yeah, don't worry it's all there, your share of apartment rent and the monthly funds from the children's agency. Ya know, you're bloody lucky to have a social worker like me, I actually bother to get here and help you out." she yawned.

Social worker?

The blonde was finding hard to believe that the woman dressed in nothing but skimpy leather outfit was a _social worker_. It was bloody unbelievable. But the again looks can be deceiving.

Before he could think further on the matter, his red headed guest began to move into his bedroom.

"Hey! Where're you going? That's my room!" Naruto exclaimed loudly.

Kitty ignored him again and began snuggling into his sheets without his permission. "You don't seem to mind all those other times, what's so different now?" she murmured from beneath the covers.

The blonde boy was sputtering from the invasion of space and the knowledge that a half-naked girl was sleeping in his bed.

"B-but where the hell am I supposed to sleep?"

She suddenly peeked over and he regretted asking. "Why don't you keep me warm tonight?" she purred. Then she laughed out loud at the embarrassed expression on the boy's face. "Baby, you're so fun to tease."

Naruto chased away his blush and coughed. "Fine." he sighed. "I'll just sleep on the couch."

"Aw, baby, the offer still stands ya know." she winked at him.

Naruto just grabbed a pillow from under her head and took another blanket from his closet and left her in his room. With a shake of his head Naruto cursed as he found himself exiled from his own room by a random chick he didn't even know.

With his head filled with more confusion than he cared for, the blonde shut his eyes and tried to get the sleep he deserved.

OOO

Morning - it seemed - was not kind to the poor blonde ninja.

His eyes were bleary from lack of sleep and his back was aching from the uncomfortable couch he was force to sleep in for the whole night. But all this was fine compared to the warm body crushing him into the couch.

Rubbing out the fuzz from his eyes, Naruto found Kitty sprawled half-way over him with her legs wrapped around his body in a graceless manner.

"Argh! Get off!" with a heated face; Naruto tried his best to reign in his shock and embarrassment while trying to push her off him without actually _touching _her.

Kitty remained oblivious to his turmoil and seemed to snuggle even closer to the blonde ninja. It was at times like this, Naruto dearly wished he could still do a replacement jutsu, perhaps then he would be spared such an awkward awakening.

"Kitty, why the hell are you sleeping on me?" As soon as the words left his mouth, Naruto flushed at the way it sounded and went another impressive shade of red.

"Wait, wait, a couple more minutes." she mumbled carelessly. "Don't wanna find them in th-" a snore escaped her mouth as she continued to bury herself deeper into his make-shift bed.

Naruto suddenly kicked her off and she gracelessly fell to the floor but remained still sleeping. The boy just stared at her for a moment then shook his head in wonderment. Was she really supposed to be an adult? Sighing, the blonde decided to cover her with his blankets and left her on the floor while he went to freshen up for the day.

He changed into a simple shirt and tracks and began making himself some ramen. The red-haired woman was still sprawled on his living room floor, snoring loudly as she tangled herself in his blankets.

Who was she? From what she had mentioned earlier, she was apparently someone who dropped off money for the teenager, probably funds for a minor like him who was living by himself. Naruto never really had any support like this back when he was younger but he was pretty sure social worker weren't supposed to looks like a prostitute. Was _Kitty_ even her real name? He doubted it. Naruto wished he could just ask her straight up but his circumstance didn't allow it. He sighed as he realised that pretending to be someone else was becoming a lot more difficult than he had first expected.

Naruto was disturbed from his thoughts when he heard a knock on his front door and for the second time he sighed and went to open it.

"Hey Iruka!" Naruto greeted warmly at the teacher.

Iruka smiled and wave. "Hey, sorry for coming over so early but I kinda got somewhere to be later today so I had to - " the teacher stopped and looked over Naruto's shoulder.

For a moment, the blonde was puzzled to why he had stopped mid-sentence but he then realised that Iruka was now looking at the half naked woman sleeping on his floor.

Naruto began to mildly panic as he didn't want his teacher to get the wrong idea. "Er...I can expl- "

"Kitty." Iruka muttered. With a sigh the scarred teacher walked in and headed towards the woman, leaving a confused Naruto at the threshold.

The brown eyed man sighed tiredly. "Why is it you're always in the same place every time I find you? Come on, get up."

Kitty was suddenly shaken awake by the annoyed teacher. "Hey! 'Ruka baby, you're here." she draped her lazy arms around his neck and propped herself along his body in a sleepy manner. "Did ya miss me sensei?"

Iruka rubbed his brow line and shook his head to himself. "Go get dressed and then leave. You know you've somewhere you've got to be."

She pouted. "Joy kill."

She sauntered of to the bathroom and left the two men in the living room. Iruka was just shaking his head then gave a weak smile to Naruto who was still looking mildly confused.

"I see you've met the lovely Kitty today." Iruka commented. "I take it you don't remember her?"

Naruto shot a skeptical look towards room where Kitty had disappeared into. "Should I?"

Iruka sat down on the couch a Naruto did the same. "She's your social worker and she's been acquainted with you for two years now. She does check-ups now and then so don't be surprised if she pops up randomly on you. Kitty occasionally brings over your money from the agency about once every two to three weeks and also some bonus check whenever they come."

Naruto hummed as Iruka explained. "So...she ain't a stripper?"

The teacher blinked then chuckled at the comment. "No but she does give that impression doesn't she?" Iruka shook his head. "She has many jobs, some more strange than others and a lot involving dressing up in ridiculous costumes. Don't bother asking me anything about it, I wouldn't know anything."

Naruto gave a curious look over to the bathroom where the red haired woman was in. "So...is she gonna come visit me in the middle of the night every time?"

Kitty peeked her head out of the bathroom. "Hey, I was in the neighborhood and I thought I should say a friendly hello, instead I almost sliced get up! Nice welcoming present!" the woman yelled from the bathroom with tooth paste frothing from her lips.

"Hey that's my tooth brush!" Naruto sputtered as he pointed at her. She completely ignored him and continued brushing away.

Iruka frowned a little. "Sliced?"

Naruto gave an impish smile. "Haha...yeah she kinda surprised me last night, I thought she was a thief. So er...I had a knife and...yeah." Naruto nervously scratched the back of his head. "My mistake."

Iruka just blinked at the blonde for a moment. "You threatened her with a knife?"

Naruto began to shake his head. "No, no I wasn't threatening her I was just...er I had it there as a precaution ya know." Damn, he hoped Iruka wouldn't be mad.

The teacher actually wasn't mad, he was just surprised.

Naruto was hardly a paranoid type, if anything; Iruka had always been worried by the boy's level of carelessness. Naruto wouldn't think twice about opening his door in the middle of night for a stranger, he would just brush off the danger factor and go with the flow. The boy he knew wasn't stupid but Iruka had always been aware of the teens lack of vigilence so it was rather surprising to hear that he carried a knife with him to the door.

"Iruka?" Naruto asked nervously.

"Hmm? Oh right, yeah don't worry about, it should at least teach her not to break into other people's apartments." Iruka dismissed lightly.

"Does she know about me? You know...the accident?" Naruto asked cautiously.

Kitty came out with a newly washed face. "Yeah, I'm the one that found you kid. You were in a right horrible shape...honestly gave me a bit of a scare."

Naruto hadn't thought much on what had happened to the _other Naruto_ and the reasons that landed him in the hospital in the first place. But now that he thought about it, falling into a coma was not an easy feat to accomplish.

"I don't really remember any of it." Naruto suddenly comment. "What happened?"

Iruka had visibly stiffened beside him and Kitty looked the most subdued since he met her.

"You hit your head pretty hard on the corner of the table in your room, I found ya bleeding pretty badly from the side of your head." Kitty explained grimly. "I called Iruka straight after you were rushed to the hospital."

Iruka fidgeted with his fingers and evident concern was etched into his face from the memory of the blonde teenager bleeding half to death. Naruto watched the emotions on his sensei's expressions and could tell that there was something more to it. Kitty was also not revealing the whole truth, his ninja senses were telling at least that much.

The boy reached up to the side of his head and could feel the stiches on his scalp. It didn't hurt but there was a slight discomfort in that particular area.

Naruto was going to pry more into the subject but decided against it when he felt the room go little silent.

"Well, I'm alright now and that's all that matters right?" Naruto beamed suddenly and jumped up from the couch. "Time for some breakfast!"

"Hold it there; you're not eating ramen for breakfast. I'll make you some toast and eggs." Iruka decided and ignored Naruto's pout as he began working in the kitchen.

"Don't forget to make some for me!" Kitty jumped up, losing all of her previous mood in less than a second.

Iruka sighed. "No, just get dressed and leave, you've stayed here long enough."

"Why are you so mean to me 'Ruka?" she pouted. "I just wanna be friends." She continued prodding and teasing the teacher while he fried eggs and Naruto watched the two argue over toast.

The blonde decided that the woman was scary and little over bearing but overall, he liked her.

Kitty eventually left after she hijacked some of Naruto's breakfast and dashed out the door wearing one of his t-shirts. Iruka stayed longer to help clean up and wash the dishes. The two remained quiet as they both scrubbed the plates till Iruka broke the silence.

"How are you settling in?" the brown haired man asked. "Have you adjusted okay?"

Naruto smiled. "Yup, everything is all good."

"Has any of your memories come back?" he asked quietly.

The blonde shook his head. "No, nothing."

"Don't worry, they'll come back." the teacher encouraged. "Eventually you'll remember something."

Naruto knew that the likelihood of that happening was next to zero but he wouldn't tell Iruka that. The man honestly thought he was _his_ Naruto but he just wasn't. A little bit of guilt sank into his stomach at the thought of Iruka waiting for the wrong person to come back...for all he knew the _other Naruto_ may even be dead. He really hoped that was not the case. The other boy was clearly someone Iruka treasure and Naruto didn't want to be the reason for taking him away from Iruka.

"Yeah."

After they cleaned the dishes, Iruka pulled Naruto on the couch and pulled out a bag and gave it to him. The boy opened it and found three white shirts and two dark pants in it.

"Huh, clothes?"

"I bought two new shirts for you and a set of pants." Iruka explained.

"Thanks but why did you buy them?" Naruto asked pulling them out.

"They're your school uniform." Iruka answered.

"_School _Uniforms?" Naruto glanced quickly down to the emblem crest in the arm band of the white shirt. The dark pants were also a part of the set. Naruto sputtered for a moment as the idea processed in his head.

He looked back down to the emblem again. _Konoha High School_.

Iruka folded them out on the coffee table. "I knew you needed new ones, seeing as you had a growth spurt recently. But the shirt on the top is your old one, I tried my best to clean it but...I couldn't get all the blood out."

Naruto indeed found the top shirt to had a very distinct stain on the collar and sleeves, the dark splotches had a metallic scent to it that Naruto knew was blood. His doppelganger must have been in his uniforms when he had the accident.

"Thanks, you didn't have to." the boy said appreciatively. The boy suddenly made a sour face. "Hang on...is this your way of telling me I have to go to school?"

"Well, that's why I came over today." Iruka explained. "The second term of the year has already begun and you had attended for the first three days but then you had your accident. You've been in the hospital ever since."

Naruto nodded. "So basically I've missed about two weeks of school?"

Iruka nodded. "I talked to your doctor and we discussed whether it'd be a wise idea for you to immerse yourself in school when you've just came out of a coma with a bad head injury _and_ with severe memory loss. _However_, the doctor also mentioned that exposing yourself with people that you know may be beneficial to recovering your old memories."

Naruto sat back and thought for a moment.

He honestly didn't find the idea of going to school appealing at all. The only school he was willing to attend was the Ninja Academy but that was only because it was a direct path to his career choice. The blonde knew next to nothing about civilian school or how they functioned and worked. He hardly took notice of them back in his village so he most certainly didn't know anything about them in _this _world.

Would he be able to pull off being a sixteen year old civilian high schooler, parading around with someone else's identity?

Naruto couldn't help but think that it would cause him a plethora of problems that he was seriously not looking forward to.

The blonde turned to look at the teacher next to him. "What do you think I should do Iruka?"

The brown eyed man glanced at the blonde then sighed. "Honestly, if it was up to me, I'd cover you up in bubble wrap and never let you go." Naruto chuckled at the answer. "But I can't and the choice is up to you in the end. Officially you're _physically _alright to go back to attending school but..."

"But I still have my memory loss to account for." Naruto finished off.

Iruka gave him a comforting smile but worry was still etched on his face. "Naruto you don't have memory loss, it's not amnesia...you just don't have the _right_ memories at all and that's what makes it a little different. Your metal stability may be fragile and we wouldn't be the wiser about It." he sighed and gave a warm squeeze on his arm. "I just...don't want you to be overwhelmed by faces that you remember for the people that they are not."

"So you don't want me back in school?"

Iruka paused. "No, I do...I just don't want to see you rush into anything without recovering properly. I don't want you to end up trusting people for false reasons and remembering things about them that they never did." the man looked down at the hand still touching the boy's arm. "I don't know what kind of world you dreamed of while you were in the coma but...things here are different and the people here are also different. You're not sleeping anymore."

Naruto understood why Iruka was so concerned and to be honest Naruto had similar sentiments on the matter. But the teacher didn't know that the world he 'dreamed' up was very much _real_ and there was no way Naruto would mistake the people from his world to the people from this one.

But despite knowing that, both Iruka's were very similar and had the same kindness that made them so precious to Naruto. Two completely different men but they seemed to embody the same heart.

Naruto gently gave Iruka's hand a comforting squeeze.

"I understand that my memories don't match up with the ones I'm apparently supposed to have but I won't go into anything blind. The last couple of days have been...confusing I admit, but I can't tell you how much easier you made it Iruka." he beamed a brilliant Uzumaki smile. "I don't know you but I saw immediately that you are already one of my precious people, whether or not I remember. I know at least this much. And I will know that same thing with anybody else. I will judge them for who they are not what I _think_ I remember them to be." he gave another wide grin and put up his thumb. "That's a promise."

Iruka was honestly a little shocked by his words. The boy's mind was not confused or uncertain like he had expected but instead Naruto was confident and spoke in a resolve Iruka was not aware he had. Iruka didn't know when it had happened but at some point, Naruto had grown up and taken charge.

Once again the older man found the blonde to be an entirely different person to the one he found lying in pool of his own blood only two weeks ago. He didn't know whether he was happy by this or upset so instead Iruka returned a warm smile and squeeze the boy's fingers. "I know."

OOO

Later that night Naruto went back to Itachi's apartment.

The walk was taxing but Naruto found that he was already gaining his strength back and it was only a matter of time before he was confident he could fight like the proper shinobi that he was.

Naruto climbed up the scaffold stairs on the side and slipped through the apartment window without a sound. He found the apartment to be dark and empty without any sign of another presence.

Where was Itachi?

After checking the rooms, Naruto still couldn't find the older raven anywhere. He guessed that he must have gone out for the night seeing as it was still a little early so Naruto decided to wait for him.

It was about an hour in of waiting that Naruto heard the front door knob rattling.

At first Naruto was about to open the door, thinking that it was Itachi but he stopped as he realised it was someone else. Itachi wouldn't enter his own apartment by picking the locks.

Someone was trying to break in.

Naruto cursed his luck as he found himself in the same situation twice in a day and quickly duck into a dark corner in the hallway. He tensed his body as he heard the door finally creak open and heard soft footsteps making its way past the threshold, the dim light from outside washing the dark apartment in a dim glow.

For a good five seconds the intruder didn't move but he then shut the front door without a noise and stalked quietly ahead, completely passing Naruto who was hiding in the dark hallway.

Naruto held his breath as he slowly peeked at the figure.

All Naruto could see was a vague silhouette, he couldn't see the face or anything else. The intruder didn't seem to be stealing anything; he was just standing there, looking aimlessly in the dark.

The person still didn't know that Naruto was there but that all went down the drain when Naruto tried to get a better look at the face and nudged the small table against the wall. The wooden legs made a horrifyingly loud screech with made the blonde cringe in trepidation.

Unfortunately it seemed the intruder also heard it.

The figure suddenly snapped his head towards Naruto's direction and began walking towards him. It only took the figure a couple of strides to reach his hiding spot and was about to step into him when Naruto side stepped him suddenly.

Without even thinking about it, the young ninja stepped away from the intruder so he was now behind him and quickly slammed him into the wall and held him pressed against it with his hand bent backwards.

Naruto heard the person grunt in surprise and pain as he held him down but the blonde was surprised the sudden pressure on his toes as the figure stepped on his feet. A second later Naruto found his breath knocked out of him as the intruder elbowed him in the stomach and broke away from his hold.

Already feeling sluggish Naruto decided to end it quickly with a sudden low sweeping kick and knocked his assailant to the ground. Naruto quickly sat on their back and pressed his body weight down on him as the faint scent of alcohol reached his nose.

His intruder was still wriggling beneath him when Naruto suddenly realised that there was something distinctively familiar about him. His thoughts were violently cut off when the man lifted his head backwards and smashed it into Naruto's jaw and broke free from the blondes hold once again.

Both men were back on their feet and facing each other off in the darkness, the sound of their panting breaths was the only thing to fill up the silence.

Naruto had no idea who it was but he was starting to wish he hadn't come over tonight.

After a few tense second both fighters charge at each other blindly in the dark and began throwing kicks and punches at their opponents.

It seemed that intruder's eyes were not as accustomed to the dark has his had been so Naruto used his upper hand to slip around him and punched him down. The intruder grunted painfully as he fell to the floor.

It seemed the moon decided to shine from behind the clouds and wash the dark room in a silvery light. The man was already getting up but as he did, the light from the window shone onto his opponents face revealing vague but familiar features.

Naruto completely froze.

He knew that distinct shape anywhere and those slim but strong facial features that existed on one person only.

"_Sasuke?_"

* * *

**A/N:** Your comments and reviews are always welcomed. I'll update as soon as possible.

Cheers

CADEL


	6. Chapter 6

**AUTHOR** - Cadel

**FANDOM - **Naruto

**SUMMARY** - _A confused Naruto finds himself in a world where ninjas don't exist. Being a civilian school boy has never been so hard for the 16yr old shinobi as he and Itachi ally together to try and find their way back home._

**GENRE - **General, Adventure, Angst, Friendship

* * *

**Previously:**

_Naruto completely froze._

_He knew that distinct shape anywhere and those slim but strong facial features that existed on one person only._

_"Sasuke?"_

* * *

CHAPTER 6

* * *

[Identity]

The moonlight was dim but Naruto knew who it was by just the faintest glow of the cheekbones and jaw.

He was hit with the overwhelming urge to reach out and grab Sasuke by the shoulders but he quickly caught himself before he did anything stupid. This was not _his_ Sasuke, and Naruto momentarily scolded himself for forgetting.

Sasuke jerked his head toward the sound of Naruto's voice and the blonde cursed for calling the raven's name out loud. He was caught in an odd situation and he wasn't sure what to do, but Naruto knew that his identity should not be exposed here in Itachi's apartment, where the blonde teen wasn't supposed to even be in the first place. Luckily Naruto had remained obscured in the shadowy parts of the apartment where the moonlight didn't hit.

"Itachi?" whispered the raven as he took a step forward.

Naruto froze unable to answer to his question. He should have considered the possibility that Itachi's younger brother might visit the older raven, they were family after all but the idea completely bypassed him. Naruto wished he had been more cautious.

Naruto took a step backwards from Sasuke who blindly looked in Naruto's direction.

"Itachi...I guess I found you this time..." came the sluggish voice, "Why is it you never answer my calls? Do you think that ignoring me would make anything change?"

Naruto noted that Sasuke's voice sounded a little unsteady...like he was drunk or drugged.

The blonde would've found the idea of a drunken Sasuke exceedingly hilarious if it had been any other time but he remained silent as the raven stumbled and held onto the couch arm for support. If the teen was intoxicated, then that would make things a little easier for Naruto to keep his identity secret. For now, he would have to remain in the shadows and pretend that he was his older brother.

"A new apartment eh? Always changing places, never staying still..." the raven wobbled a little on the spot then continued. "Hiding again brother?" there was a quiet scoff afterwards.

Naruto could hear undeniable resentment lacing his tone as he backed further away.

"Not saying anything?" there was another quiet scoff. "Suppose not...you never do...always silent, always calm, always perfect..." there was something other than disdain in the drunk teen's voice that Naruto could pick out, "Of course I know better. You're hardly perfect..."

As Sasuke's voice became quieter, the blonde felt that he was now listening into something a little more personal than he was privy to hear.

"Every time I see you, every time I take the effort to track you down...you always do the same thing." his voice was quieter now but drawled out. "Why won't you say anything?"

Naruto watched as Sasuke clumsily took a few steps forward and stop to absently rub a sore rib on the side. It was then that Naruto realised that he was now backed into a corner.

"Look...I don't know what more I should say...I don't know how to talk to you..." the raven whispered in his dizzy stupor.

Naruto was even more at loss when the young Uchiha began to furiously rub his eyes...like he was trying to wipe away tears. Not remembering a time where Sasuke Uchiha ever cried made Naruto curious and also embarrassed to witness it, despite the fact that the boy in front of him was not _his _Sasuke.

Naruto jumped in alarm when Sasuke suddenly threw a near-by object and smashed it on the floor.

The blonde found himself backed even further into his corner when Sasuke edged towards him. Now the boy was directly in front of him, both teenager obscured in the shadow of the room, neither faces showing.

"I tried everything! Why won't you at least acknowledge that? Are you angry with me? Angry at what I did?" the boy's voice broke at the outburst and a choky sound came from his throat. "Can't you even tell me that much? Damn it, I said I was sorry!" Sasuke leaned in, "I'm _sorry_..."

Naruto suddenly found himself in an awkward position as the younger Uchiha pressed his forehead onto Naruto's chest, the front of the blonde's shirt being held tightly in Sasuke's hand as a shudder wracked the boy's frame.

The young ninja had his back pressed against the wall with his arms hanging dumbly beside him. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with the distressed boy, Naruto hardly had any experience with emotional Uchihas. It was a wonder that Sasuke hadn't already figured out that Naruto's body frame was nothing like his older brothers.

Another shudder ran through Sasuke's body as he buried his face in what he thought was his brother's shirt. "I'm _sorry_...please...I don't know how many times you want me to say it..." he wasn't crying but it was clear to Naruto that Sasuke was holding back a lot.

Naruto was never one to like seeing others cry, not even his enemies, so the image of Sasuke holding back tears, fearing he would begin to cry in front of his _brother_ made a tight feeling spread in Naruto's stomach. He seemed far too much like a child.

It wasn't in Naruto's place to do anything as he had no clue what the raven was so upset about or the fact that Sasuke thought he was Itachi. All he could do was press himself further against the wall and wait to see what would happen next.

He felt Sasuke tighten his hold onto the front of his shirt.

"Why won't you say anything nii-san?" his voice was all but a hushed tremor.

The last thing Naruto wanted was an overly emotional, drunk Uchiha crying into his shirt. So when he heard the raven call him _nii-san,_ he decided that he could no longer remain still.

If Sasuke thought Naruto was Itachi then maybe for a moment he could pretend to be the brother Sasuke wished he was.

Slowly Naruto brought his hand up and hesitantly pressed onto the raven's back. After a moment of no movement, Naruto though it was safe enough for him to gently rub Sasuke's back in small, warm circles, pretending that he was Itachi comforting his distressed brother. And for all Sasuke knew, he was.

It seemed that Sasuke was momentarily surprised by the sudden ministrations but after a hesitant moment he further leaned into Naruto's shirt as the blonde continued to rub his back. The raven leaned into the warmth like a little child seeking comfort and stood still against him.

Now that Sasuke was practically on top on the blonde ninja, Naruto could smell him more clearly, specifically noting that there was hardly any alcohol on him than he first expected. There was a slight trace in his breath but it was hardly enough to intoxicate him to this level. Naruto's nose picked up on another strange scent that was not supposed to be in any form of drink but was laced on Sasuke's lips. Whatever the raven drank had been spiked, probably party drug s that he had accidently consumed. That would explain Sasuke's unsteadiness but odd lucidity that allowed him to fight Naruto beforehand. It also probably explained that uncharacteristically emotional outburst from the usually reserved boy as well.

It still felt a little awkward having Sasuke willingly cling to him as he half rested on his chest. He sure as hell would never get away with doing this back home; Sasuke would sooner gouge his eyes out than let Naruto hug him.

Naruto told himself that it would be okay to just momentarily indulge Sasuke the comfort he wanted.

He wondered if the Sasuke from back home would allow such a thing...Naruto wished his best friend would stop chasing after the dead and allow himself some comfort. He wished his best friend would allow a moment of rest from all the anger beating him in, all the hatred suffocating him.

Having a proxy Sasuke in his arms, Naruto found himself missing the bastard.

The raven trailed his fingers upwards and Naruto froze when he felt the other boy touch the nape of his neck.

The whiskered ninja should've realised that Sasuke could feel his short hair instead of Itachi's trademark pony tail. It seemed that just as Naruto had realised his mistake, Sasuke suddenly lifted his head away and gave one sluggish run through Naruto's spiky hair.

With a sharp intake of breath, Sasuke recoiled away from Naruto as he realised that he was not his brother. Naruto had to applaud the raven's sharp mind even when he was intoxicated.

Despite the slight wobble and unsteadiness in the boy's movements, he had already located the light switch on the wall and flicked it on.

With the living room lights glaring over them, Naruto's identity was now fully exposed. Luckily Sasuke still had his back towards him and his eye were adjusting to the light so Naruto swiftly moved over and gave one strong blow on the base of the neck.

The raven teenager crumpled to the ground had remained there unconscious.

Naruto dragged his palm down his tired face and sighed. "Shit."

* * *

It was a while later when Naruto heard the front door of the apartment open.

"Naruto." Itachi greeted calmly.

He watched the blonde teen silently stare out his window while fiddling with the sofa cushions. Itachi absently noted the broken vase on the ground and the moved hallway table sitting askew.

"Well you took long enough, where the heck have you been?" Naruto complained.

"I had some things to deal with." Itachi replied simply as he hung his suit jacket.

It was then that Naruto noticed the man's attire. Itachi was wearing a simple black suit with a dark blue tie and white shirt. A simple black side bag was strapped over one shoulder.

"Something I should know about?" Naruto asked curiously.

The raven just shook his head. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with." He dropped the bag on the sofa and gave a glance at the hall way where the room were allocated.

There was a moment where Itachi just stared off in the one direction then he slowly turned to look at Naruto who was watching him.

"There's someone here."

Naruto nodded. "It's your brother."

Itachi blinked. "Sasuke?" he looked over to the bedroom door which was slightly open.

"I kinda knocked him out after he broke in; I thought it'd be okay if I put in your room." Naruto explained while scratching the back of his neck. "Sorry for not calling you before coming here, I tried a couple of times but you didn't pick up…and it's confusing working these damn mobiles." The blonde sighed, "Anyway, he just came out of nowhere and a little more than just intoxicated. I personally think he'd been drugged a little, he wasn't making much sense."

Itachi just nodded to the explanation.

Naruto waited a moment then asked slowly, "So what are we gonna do with him now?"

"You take him home."

The young ninja blinked. "Huh? Why can't we just leave him here?"

"Because he shouldn't be here."

"Well, I kinda thought he should stay here, seeing as he came here looking for you." Naruto argued. "He seemed pretty upset."

The older Uchiha just shook his head. "No, Sasuke cannot see me at the moment."

This time Naruto looked at Itachi in confusion then frowned. "He _can't_ see you or you don't _want_ him to see you?"

"Both."

Naruto watched as Itachi pulled off the dark tie from around his neck in suspicion. The raven didn't seem to be fazed by the fact that his brother's doppelganger just broke into his home. Itachi didn't even look into the room to check up on him. The man wasn't telling him everything and blonde didn't know whether he should drop it or continuing persisting. Eventually Naruto accepted.

"Fine but I don't know where his house is and it's so damn late. Why can't you do it?" he whined.

"I'll drive but you must take him in, and when I say home…I meant _your _apartment." Itachi elaborated.

Naruto gaped for a moment. "Why the hell am I taking him to my place? Why can't we just take him straight to his own house?"

Itachi gave small glance to the bedroom where Sasuke was resting. "We can't take him to the Uchiha mansion because there's no one there."

"Wait did you just say _mansion_?" Naruto shook his to clear out his thoughts. "What's the problem if no one's there?"

The raven haired man sat down on the sofa across Naruto and closed his eyes.

"His parents have left on a trip for a week. The house is too empty, too cold…in his current state I don't feel safe having him stay alone in that big house and I know the _he_ doesn't want to either." Itachi explained softly.

The blonde suddenly understood Itachi.

"You've been tailing him haven't you?" Naruto said. "I wondered what you'd been doing for the past couple of days but I should have guessed that you'd be checking up on Sasuke."

The older man looked over Naruto's direction then nodded. "I have."

"So you said his parents are on a trip…so that means they're alive?" Naruto stated a little cautiously.

Itachi just nodded. "He's your age and he also attends your school, he lives with both his wealthy parents in the Uchiha estate and has one older brother."

"You." Naruto added.

"No," Itachi shook his head. "I am not his brother."

Naruto blinked at the statement as Itachi stood up and began walking towards his bedroom. He came back out shortly with the unconscious boy hanging over his back. He mentioned Naruto to grab the keys and they both went down stairs and seat themselves in with Sasuke sleeping in the back.

It didn't take long for both ninjas to carry the boy up to Naruto's apartment and lay him to rest on Naruto's couch.

After a moment Naruto shook his. "I still think this is a bad idea. What am I gonna do when he wakes up? I don't know him, or maybe I do…or don't…maybe he knows me from school and expects me to act a certain way and…" he paused and let out a loud breath. "Itachi can't we just drop him off at his own place?"

The raven covered his little brother with a spare blanket. "I'm sorry for always asking you to do things but I trust you to be the one to look out for him…even if this isn't the same Sasuke both you and I know." He stared down at the sleeping boy with thoughtful eyes. "I am glad to get the chance to see his face not contorted in hate and anger once more." Itachi moved away a strand of hair from the teen's face. "Even if he's just a substitute, a dead man is in no place to complain."

Watching Itachi tuck in his brother Naruto groaned in defeat. "Alright but if I stuff up or accidently club him in the head, it's all on you."

"I would've thought you would jump the chance to become friends with him once more, even if they are not the same." Itachi pointed out with a small smile.

Naruto pulled the blanket up for the sleeping teen and sighed.

"I dunno what to think Itachi…I'm still trying to understand what the hell happened to land us here in the first place. I know it's a little easier for you; you always seem to have everything under control, you always have everything figured out…I just ain't like that. I'm slow and 'dumb as a door knob' according to baa-chan."

Itachi gave the young teen a clam look. "You're not dumb, you think with your heart and as a shinobi that makes you special."

Naruto gave a thankful smile and chuckled. "Anyway, I think two teme's is too much and this one seems to be just as much of an emotional wreck as our own Sasuke." With a glance over to the older man Naruto added, "You know…he seemed really upset before, he kept apologizing to me when he thought I was you. I know that it's not my business…hell, it probably ain't even _your _business but maybe you should take some time later to talk to him."

Itachi didn't say anything for a while and Naruto thought he wasn't going to answer but he eventually said, "Maybe but I'm not sure there's anything I can do. When one apologizes, it's because he has done something to warrant it…seeing as I am not the person he thinks I am, his apologies are wasted on me."

Naruto frowned. "Yeah, but _he _doesn't know that…can't you indulge him a little, comfort him in whatever way you can?"

"Hmm, so you do care about him." Itachi added.

"I never said I didn't, I just don't know how to act around him…" the blonde teen looked down. "I didn't really know how to act around our Sasuke as well…but he didn't seem to mind, at least before he decided to kill me." Naruto glanced over the sleeping who seemed complete oblivious to the two shinobi talking about him. "Sasuke and I were always at odds…but we were the same…like two sides of the same coin. I saw him as a brother but…" the blonde shinobi looked at Itachi with a clam expression, "…his mind and heart could only ever acknowledge his _real_ brother, there was simply no room for me."

Naruto looked down at the sleeping boy and couldn't help but think that he looked nothing the Sasuke he knew back home, despite their identical faces. There simply wasn't the hollow look in his eyes and neither was there the ridged, tautness in his frame that grew from years of living dangerously, day by day, waiting and watching for someone to try and rip you apart. Even the frowns were different.

No…Naruto didn't see the resemblance between the two Sasuke's of his world and this one. Avengers and soldiers are not born, they are made and conditioned. This boy was made of different stuff and Naruto knew that Itachi could see it too.

Itachi calmly stood up from his crouch next to the sofa. "Once again, I'm sorry for putting my responsibilities on you Naruto…I think in the future I will need to repay my debt to you. Although I admit I don't know how."

Naruto blinked at the statement and shook his with a silly grin. "Na, don't worry about, besides I think the bastard likes the attention he gets from both of us and it not really a debt if I went in it for my own reasons." He grinned at the older raven. "Besides I made a promise of a life time and it's my ninja way to never go back on my word!"

Naruto momentarily went still as he looked back down at his fisted palm. The young man opened his fingers and instinctively tried to feel his chakra but as expected, he was only met with emptiness.

Did his Nindo really mean anything in a world where chakra and ninjas didn't even exist?

"Are we really still shinobi?" Naruto wondered absently to himself.

Itachi seemed to have heard and decided to answer him. "We only stop being ninja when we lose our shinobi heart." The older man gave a small smile. "And you have too much of that to ever stop being a shinobi. The will of fire has always been particularly strong in you, and no matter where we are you remain to be as blindingly bright as the first time I met you."

Naruto grinned. "Yeah!" the he stopped and gave a suspicious glare are Itachi. "I hope you're not talking about my orange clothes."

The older man just shrugged. "Among other things."

Naruto laughed. "Well the first time I saw you I was scared as hell when your fish friend said he wanted to lop off my feet! Dunno how you thought I was _bright_."

"I was not referring to that particular meeting." Itachi added.

Naruto blinked and tilted his head in confusion. "Huh?"

The older man waved him off as he began walking away. "Take care of him Naruto; I'll contact you when you begin school."

It was then that Naruto remember the reason he even went to see Itachi in the first place. He was going to inform him about Iruka's school proposition to him and ask if it was a good idea but it seemed the raven already knew and had indirectly encouraged him to take the proposal. Naruto shook his head as Itachi closed the front door behind him and muttered something about sly Uchihas.

Scratching the top of his head, Naruto turned back to look at the unconscious Sasuke sleeping on his couch and sighed.

Tomorrow was going to be troublesome.

* * *

Later that same night, Itachi Uchiha sat alone in his apartment with dark eyes roaming over a simple manila folder spread open on his lap.

At the very top of the folder was a small picture attached. A wide grin plastered over the face of a whiskered boy staring back at him in a careless way that he himself had never experienced.

Slim fingers traced the police emblem stamped on the top of the page in deep purple but his mind was only focusing on the **'TERMINATE'** blocked in offending red.

He gazed calmly at the signature scribbled at the bottom of the page in neat, cursive handwriting that he recognized as his own.

With one last look he shut the manila and burned it.

* * *

**A/N: **We now have both Uchihas in the same room, a babysitting Naruto and a cliffy end.

Give me your opinions like the way you would give me the flu. Always happy to get a little sick.

CADEL


	7. Chapter 7

**AUTHOR** - Cadel

**FANDOM -**Naruto

**SUMMARY** - _A confused Naruto finds himself in a world where ninjas don't exist. Being a civilian school boy has never been so hard for the 16yr old shinobi as he and Itachi ally together to try and find their way back home._

**GENRE -**General, Adventure, Angst, Friendship

* * *

Chapter 7

* * *

[Familiarity]

Being a ninja had taught Naruto to sleep lightly but the presence of the other person in the next room made it near impossible for the young man to get the shut-eye he dearly needed. After a good four hours of listening to the soft breathing coming from his couch, Naruto finally managed to fall into a very light slumber but that didn't last very long. It seemed that slumbering presence of the young Uchiha was disrupting more than just Naruto's thoughts.

It was about seven in the morning that Naruto found himself staring at the boy's face with something a kin to awe.

Sasuke was lightly drooling on his pillow with small snores escaping his mouth. He still smelled like alcohol but it wasn't as noticeable anymore. The missing scowl and frown lines were not missed by the blonde as Naruto continued to marvel at the eerie similarities this boy had to his best friend.

Thinking of Sasuke always made Naruto feel nostalgic but no matter what he was thinking, there was an undeniable undercurrent of melancholy laced with all his memories of the boy, even the good ones. Had Sasuke been always so broken? Even during those small moments in team seven where the raven seemed to have momentarily forgot his ambitions, was he still as fractured as he was now?

It was silly to ask because Naruto knew now of his ignorance and his blindness to Sasuke's true misery. That young, bright boy that Naruto admired had died many years ago in that massacre. Sasuke never truly lived after his family's death and Itachi's betrayal. Perhaps Naruto was a fool for believing that he could bring Sasuke back to what he used to be, but what he used to be wasn't healthy either. So what was there left?

Watching with sad blue eyes, Naruto felt a new wave of grief.

He knew the Sasuke that stood against him on the battle ground with bleeding eyes and insanity dancing in his face was not his brother. That Sasuke was just a mutilated echo of what the young man used to be.

Naruto leaned on the arm of the couch as he continued to stare at the sleeping raven. This boy was not his best friend, not even close but he couldn't deny that he had already developed bias affection toward him. It really couldn't be helped. Catching Sasuke was like catching smoke with your hands, he just kept slipping through and only the bitter scent of ash would be left.

After chasing him for so long, having him here on his couch was a novel experience.

Naruto wanted to shake him awake and scream at him and laugh at him and…But Naruto knew that if he woke him up, Sasuke would not know him. He would not say the things that Naruto expected to hear.

This boy was a stranger.

* * *

The room was warm; sunlight passed through the thin skin of his eye lids and washed his vision red as Sasuke finally came back into consciousness.

It was a long time till the young man managed to crack one eye open but he was greeted with a violent thrumming in his temples and a sore shoulder. His mind click into place after a few moments of confusion and he realised that he was in unfamiliar territory.

It was a small apartment with very few things, just the basic essentials and relatively tidy. Blood-shot eyes danced over the interior and scanned any clue to where he was. It was obvious to Sasuke that he had never been here before. The raven slowly dragged himself off the couch which seemed to want to suck him back in but he managed to stumble his way towards the covered windows. A generic scape of Konoha was what met him when he looked out the window, he could even see a bit of the hospital in the far distance so he got a rough idea of which district he was in. From what he saw, he was in the bad part of town; well at least it was a lot worse than the part he lived in.

Hoping that he didn't come to be here due to some frivolous girl dragging him over after the party was the next thing on Sasuke's mind but no matter where he looked Sasuke was completely alone.

Sasuke never caring for others sense of privacy decided to look into the bedroom on the far end of the hallway but found that the master bedroom to be empty. The messy bed sheets were the only sign indicating that someone had been here recently but even then the room didn't hold much clue to their identity. It was a small relief to note that the room didn't seem to have the unnecessary clutter that was associated with a girl's bedroom but it also didn't give insight to who the owner might be. There was hardly any personality within the walls, no posters, no pictures just a dirty sock in the corner.

Finding that it was pointless, Sasuke went to the bathroom to freshen up while pondering what had happen the previous night.

Naturally his memory was something to be desired. Jaded fragments of pictures and sounds seemed to swim in his mind but nothing solid to work off. For a moment the raven feared that he might have been robbed but to his relief found his wallet still in his jean pocket.

It was while Sasuke was drying his face with the hanging towel that he heard the sound of the front door open then close.

The raven froze as he listened to the sound of the floorboards lightly giving way under the pressure of footsteps. The sound of plastic also accompanied that occasional clutter of noise now moving further away. Sasuke found he was momentarily afraid to see who it might it be but quickly shook the ridiculous feeling away and slowly walked out of the bathroom.

Moving slowly towards the living room, Sasuke found that he could see the person standing in the kitchen with his back turned towards him. The guy was moving about in the small space as the clutter of pans and spoons followed his careless movements. The only reason Sasuke could see into the kitchen from the living room was due to the small opening cut into the feature wall, separating to the two rooms. It was rather low so he couldn't see the head but the torso was exposed.

Sasuke cautiously hovered over the couch as he decided to wait till the person came out as he wasn't bothered to approach the stranger; his headache was also not helping with improving his mood.

The tangy smell of ramen slowly reached Sasuke's nose by the time the owner of the apartment came out of the kitchen. A messy tousle of blonde hair and whiskered cheeks met Sasuke's dark gaze as he identified his host.

_Uzumaki._

The village idiot if he wasn't mistaken.

Naruto stopped and observed the raven with a mouthful of ramen still hanging disgustingly from his mouth. All Sasuke did was stare back at him and let the silence stretch on. The raven frowned a little when the blonde boy approached him suddenly then pushed a cup of coffee in his hand with ease and went back to the kitchen to grab some tissues.

"Hey, you just gonna stand there?" called out the voice from the kitchen.

Sasuke blinked then slowly walked towards the small kitchen and sipped the coffee lightly. He found that the brew was far too sweet for his liking and placed it on the counter.

The blonde boy was rummaging through a plastic shopping bag and pulled out a bulk pack of miso ramen and other trinkets not worth noting. The blonde looked at it for a moment then turned back to look at Sasuke who was standing at the threshold of the kitchen. A moment later the raven found a dish of cherry tomatoes in his hands.

"Eat."

"I'm not hungry." Sasuke replied bluntly.

"Then drink the coffee, usually helps with the headache." He answered back smoothly.

"Too sweet."

Naruto gave him a quick look then shrugged. "Alright, is there something you _do_ want?"

"Not from you, no." the raven stated flatly.

The whiskered teen just grinned then sat down on the couch. "You should have some ramen then."

Sasuke sighed and scowled. "Who the hell has ramen for breakfast?"

"I do and I'm telling you it helps. Besides it's almost eleven so technically it's lunch." Naruto defended. Sasuke just stared at the blonde with indifference. "Sheesh, you really ain't a morning person. Why don't you just sit down and relax for a moment ya big drunk."

Sasuke scowled again. "I'm not a drunk."

"Says the guy I found lying face down in the street last night." He remarked back.

"What?"

For a moment Uzumaki looked at him with a cautious look. "Do you remember anything from last night?"

Sasuke wanted to say yes to the blonde but the truth was he was drawing a blank. "No."

"Raging drunk." The blonde laughed in good humour and jammed a fork full of noddles into his mouth.

The raven gave the other a cold glare then reluctantly sat down on the opposite end of the couch. "So…you found me?" raven muttered reluctantly. He didn't want to ask him but the idea that he couldn't remember a single thing was making him increasingly…uncomfortable.

"Yeah." The blonde lied. "Must have had one too many 'cause you were unconscious by the time I found you. Didn't know where you lived so I thought I should bring you in."

"I didn't even have that many." Sasuke added with an annoyed expression.

Naruto shrugged. "Then it was probably spiked."

To his dismay, Sasuke found that his theory actually made a lot of sense. He scowled at the fact that he'd been vulnerable for so long without knowledge of what happen in those missing hours. Damn, he didn't even want to go to that stupid party in the first place.

He gave a cautious glance at the blonde who was still eating his noddles with revolting speed and hated the fact that this boy was the one to have found him such an undignified state. Quite frankly he was surprised he hadn't added any more insulting and patronizing remarks about him. It certainly should be expected from the blonde he knew.

"Ya know, you should have at least one contact number on you just in case things like this happen." Naruto added.

"Things like this _don't_ happen to me." Sasuke growled in annoyance.

The other boy just blinked. "But it did…last night. Don't you have like a back-up buddy or a relative for these sorts of things, a best friend or a _brother_?"

The raven turned away from him with a cross of his arms. "No one worth mentioning, I'm fine on my own."

He sighed. "Why am I not surprised you'd say that."

"What do you mean by that?" the raven asked dangerously.

"Well, it's a typical answer for a loner like you right?" the Naruto grin cheekily.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "_Loner?_ Well that's a bit hypocritical coming from someone like you isn't it, Uzumaki?"

The raven found that the blonde eyes widen just by the smallest fraction but to Sasuke's surprise his face turned more curious. "Someone like me?" with a small lean forward, Naruto tilted his head a little. "And what would that be like Sasuke?"

Sasuke found he didn't liking the sudden lack of distance between them and frowned.

The raven didn't know Naruto too well actually but his character type was easy to read from what he had already seen from school. Outcast, dumb, stupid, brash, undignified, careless, airhead, hyper, clumsy, oblivious, poor, ridiculously optimistic, loud and he was someone that honestly didn't know his place. His persona was so hard to ignore that even Sasuke – someone who doesn't even care to learn his name – knew who Naruto Uzumaki was.

That was the general evaluation for the blonde boy in the whole school.

Although Sasuke didn't care whether Naruto was stupid or not, he most certainly could never handle much of someone like him. They grated on his nerves and split his head in irritation. It didn't help that Naruto seemed to have some kind of childish aggression towards Sasuke since day one. In return Sasuke found that the blonde was something of an unwanted parasite that oozed endless stupidity. Naruto could outmatch any horde of raging fan-girls with a single annoying screech of 'bastard!'

My god, there had been multiple times where Sasuke had wondered what deity he pissed off in his past life to deserve such a classmate. He never understood the boy's adamant claims to beating him in nearly everything. They weren't rivals. Not even close. You couldn't compete against a retard but it seemed that Naruto had gone off and deluded himself long before Sasuke could convince him otherwise.

"Well isn't that obvious? You're a loser of course, like you've always been." Sasuke stated in a factual manner. The young Uchiha usually responded to Naruto with a flippant attitude or completely ignoring him. But it seemed that Sasuke was feeling particularly harsh this morning.

Naruto blinked at the raven then began to chuckle lightly to himself.

"A loser?" with a good-natured smile Naruto leaned his chin on his propped up arm. "Then I must make losing look good eh?"

Sasuke blinked.

There had been something bugging Sasuke the whole time he had been with Naruto this morning. Something small, unnoticeable that seemed to have been scratching at the back of Sasuke's brain. He was not familiar with the blonde but the young Uchiha had come across the boy enough to know his typical pattern of behaviour.

That pattern seemed to be a little…_off_ today.

Even now as a strange silence seemed to stretch between them, Naruto's azure eyes observed him with a strange intensity that confused and unnerved him. Uzumaki's voice also seemed to be lacking something as well, whether that was just Sasuke's imagination or not, he did not know.

Maybe the raven was concentrating too hard because Naruto suddenly shifted closer and placed a warm palm over his forehead as his eyes squinted comically. "Are you alright there Uchiha? Ya kind of looking at me funny."

Banking on his poor health that morning for his weird thoughts, Sasuke ignored his previous pondering and decided that the teen in front of him was a complete idiot.

The raven slapped Naruto's hand away from his forehead and began to get up without looking at Naruto's right leg hooking in a hazardous angle. In result Sasuke found himself tripping over the offending limb and falling towards the coffee table.

After a horrible moment, Sasuke found that his body never made contact with the table as Naruto had somehow grabbed his left arm and quickly held him back from smashing his head against the dangerous corner. Naruto pulled him away with quick reflexes and in return found himself with an armful of Uchiha…again.

A few second went by as Sasuke forced his heart rate to go down from his near accident.

Sasuke didn't know if he should have thanked the blonde for saving him or scorn him ruthlessly for having his criminal leg in the way but his thoughts were immediately erased when a strange smell entered his nose. Having his face near Naruto's chest gave Sasuke a nose full of the boy's scent.

For the life of him, Sasuke couldn't imagine why it seemed so familiar but before he finished that thought a sudden flow of erratic flashes bolted through the raven's mind in series of fragments. Smells, sights, sounds both loud and vibrant flickered his vague memory to life. He remembered a brawl and pain blooming in his ribs where he was kicked and he remembered feeling angry then sad…then…

"Itachi…?" The raven whispered.

"Say what?"

Sasuke was suddenly snapped back to reality and found himself still in Naruto's strong grip. Feeling dazed but a little foolish and annoyed, the young Uchiha pushed away from the blonde. "Nothing."

"Er…you alright? Kinda glazed out on me there." Naruto asked with a small frown.

Having filled his patience for the day, Sasuke decided he had to get away from the village idiot before he caught something unsavoury.

"Hey, where are you going?" Naruto asked as he watched the young Uchiha grumbled his way to the door.

"What does it look like? I'm leaving." He answered back impatiently.

"But you don't know where you are."

"I'll manage."

Sasuke found his shoes, quickly put them on and opened the door…only to be yelled at some more by a balding man.

"Hey maggot, didn't I tell your rent was due! I ain't gonna give –"

The caretaker finally realized that he was yelling to wrong teenager and spotted the sly looking blonde behind the raven. Sasuke on the other hand was reaching his limit. What was wrong with the people in this side of town? Where they all brain damaged and chronically loud?

Hoping their stupidity wasn't contagious; the young Uchiha dodged his way around the caretaker and quickly walked out.

* * *

Another shooting.

Itachi placed the documents neatly in a pile as he analysed the next folder while leaning back into his chair.

The next one was double homicide involving an elderly and a tax officer.

Next one was a robbery in the local grocer.

Identity fraud. Another theft. Carrying illegal weapons. Minors stealing from a local electronics store. Car accident.

The raven closed the last folder and sighed. Perhaps it was poetic that he was now working in the local investigation department. Konoha Police.

Perhaps it was a little _too_ ironic for the raven's taste. But the mindset that seemed to come with the job was familiar and welcomed to a shinobi like Itachi. He probably wouldn't be very accustomed to sitting idle all day, which would be more taxing on him than anything else.

"Hey Uchiha, were all heading out for lunch, want to join us? Shin's lost the bet so he's gonna be paying."

Itachi looked up and gave a polite shake of his head. "Thank you Genma but I have a few things I need to finish off here."

The tooth pick in the man's mouth twisted. "You sure?"

The raven nodded.

Genma gave the young man a blank look before saying, "Don't work yourself too hard Uchiha, you're more useful to us alive."

Itachi gave the man an appreciative look. "Thank you Genma, I'll keep that in mind."

"Alright, see you tomorrow."

The young man stacked all the reports in a neat pile and stored them away in a cabinet for later use while loosening the tie around his neck. The ninja would have preferred his loose fitting mesh shirt and sandals but it seemed that would not be the normal attire in this world. He would have to make do with the dark coloured button down shirt for now.

Itachi's working space wasn't all that different to his co-workers, simple but spacious working cubicle with a wooden desk and various piles of paper that were organized in neat piles. Itachi's desk didn't have many personal affects like his other co-workers so it didn't help much with figuring out who the man was but Itachi still gained some information on his host.

From the way everything was organized and placed, Itachi deduced the normal pattern of movement the _other _Itachi would have scanned for information on his desk, it also gave the young Uchiha an idea of which direction his host's mind tended to stray. There was two of every colour of pen in a glass jar but that wasn't anything to take note of. But Itachi noticed that the jar itself had a worn down label on it. At one point it held rock sugar candy and the smell of lime and mango still clung to the jar so Itachi knew which flavour used to be in there. The raven took note that it may have been a favourite of his host's. His nose certainly found it familiar and pleasant.

Itachi traced pale fingers over a stained ring on the wood of his desk, a coffee stain that stuck permanently after repeated placement on the one area. His host drank with his left hand and placed the cup on his right side. It seemed to be a repeated habit from what the stained ring showed. Without thinking of it too much, Itachi placed his current cup of milk tea on his left.

There was mild concern in regarding how Itachi should act around his co-workers but his usual self seemed to match his host's persona just fine and any deviation from the usual normal pattern of behaviour was not noticed by anyone. Even if it was, Itachi doubted anyone would guess that he was actually a shinobi from another world, manifesting in the body of their colleague. No, Itachi was confident that would never be found out but his inner-ninja was paranoid so he remained constantly alert and low-key.

It seemed the _other_ Itachi had a relatively calm relationship with the people in the investigative department. No one outwardly seemed antagonistic towards him but nor were they overly friendly. Just a respectable distance between colleagues. But people like Genma and his work friends seemed to never fail to invite Itachi out to the bar, even though Itachi never accepted. I think they just want to see if he would ever go with them. The young raven smiled a little at the idea of accepting their offer just once.

"Now what the devil are you smiling about? You're scaring everyone."

The young raven blinked then upon recognising the voice, he hid his small grin behind his cup of tea. "Hello Shisui, I was just merely entertaining the idea of accepting some lunch out."

The older Uchiha blinked once then leaned in with the cheekiest smile ever to pass on the man's face. "Hey, hey now, since when did you have girlfriend? Come on, tell me her name, she pretty?"

"Forget what I said, is there something you want?" Itachi cut in smoothly.

The older man pouted a little. "So cold. Actually I was wondering if you would be on board with me on a case that has recently been re-opened."

"Re-opened?"

"Yeah," Shisui nodded with a suddenly serious face. "It was something I encountered when I first started the force; the entire thing was inconclusive and was shut down when we ran out of leads. But there have been some activity recently that has piqued my senses and I can't help but think that they were related so I did some research and found some solid links between these recent events to the cold case."

Itachi nodded as he listened. "So it's been approved to be re-opened and you want me to be involved?"

"Hell, I want you to be my partner on this!" Shisui exclaimed with confidence. "I've been assigned as the head of the investigation on this and I can hand pick my team. You were the first person I thought about, I haven't worked with you on anything since our case two years ago."

Itachi nodded even though he did not remember. "Alright I'll think about it."

The older man deflated a little. "Think about it? Here I thought you'd jump on the opportunity to work with your _nii-san_ again."

"I have other things I'm working on at the moment; I do not wish to be an impediment on your case." Itachi answered honestly.

"What have you been working on actually? I haven't seen you around in a while and you never go out for drinks with me anymore." A gave him suspicious look. "You've been hiding something from me."

He most certainly was but that wasn't something Itachi was going to voice.

Shisui narrowed his eyes on the younger man. "You know there have never been secrets between us."

Yes, there were hardly any secrets between Shisui and Itachi but that _Shisui _had been dead for a long time. The jovial man in front of him with his best friend's face was not Shisui. The raven didn't know if he was disappointed or relieved.

"Of course there are, we are _Uchiha_, it comes with the name, dose it not?" Itachi added while straightening out his draw.

The older man still had his eyes narrow but Itachi could see mirth dancing behind his dark eyes. "I knew it! It is a woman!"

A couple of people from the cubicles near him started to give them funny looks as Shisui beamed down at him.

Itachi sighed at the man he considered his best friend and couldn't help but feel that it was insanely bizarre how similar the two Shisui's were. "If I said yes, will you stop yelling?"

Shisui baulked at him. "Oh my god, for real? Seriously, you have a woman somewhere you're not telling me?"

"Yes Shisui, I do, I've been hiding her for some years now but I should have seen that my sharp minded _nii-san_ would discover my dark secret." Itachi stated in a ridiculously straight voice and with no change in expression as he continued to sort through his filing cabinet. "I'll give your proposal some thought, do you have the file for me to look at?"

The man chuckled. "Alright, here's the case file, take a good look through and tell me if you're interested."

Itachi accepted the folder and watched his long-since-dead friend walk out with an achingly familiar smile.

The raven's phone suddenly began to vibrate so he quickly answered it. "Genma?"

"_Hey Itachi, sorry for calling so abruptly but I've just got an urgent page. Meet me in the fourth distract at the local train station." _

"I'll be there in fifteen."

* * *

Itachi entered the open platform of the station in district four of Konoha and waited for Genma to show up. It was only a moment later that he saw the tooth pick chewing man walking towards him.

"Thanks for coming at such short notice." He stated as Itachi nodded.

Both men passed various people taking samples from the railway tracks and the forensic team taking various photographs and swabbing the place. Both Genma and Itachi ducked underneath the crime tape and stepped closer to the platform.

"My search team was notified about thirty-two hours ago that a child by the name of Tyson Lin was missing and his parents hadn't seen him since he left for school the previous day. We talked to all his friends and teacher and apparently he never even made it to school that day." Genma lead Itachi down onto the railway tracks and they continued to walk away from the station and followed the tracks. "We got a tip just an hour ago about a body lying just a few meters from the railway tracks. Guess who it is?"

Itachi stepped under another crime tape and found the body of a boy no older than fourteen lying sprawled on the ground which his arms and legs sprawled gracelessly over the stone gravel beneath him. The sight was not pretty.

"I asked you down here because you specialise in homicides." Genma explained with a grave voice as he looked at the dead child. "At first we thought that he had been kidnapped but from what I've seen, the boy was never touched by anyone."

"No blunt force trauma, no bruises, not even scratch." Itachi noted to himself. "How did he get to this location?"

"From what I can tell, he walked and I have reason to believe that there was no struggle involved." Genma explained. "But, it's still a strange place to be found dead, he's not even on the tracks, he's just lying next to it."

"That's because he was still walking…" Itachi thought. "He was intending to take a short cut across the railway."

"Damn these kids are gutsy now a day." Genma shook his head. "Where was he headed though? The direction he was going is opposite to his house. We also don't know where he's been in the hours he wasn't at school and that's practically twenty-four missing hours."

The raven stood up and glanced at the boys shoes. "There are seeds stuck to his shoes take some sample of those and match the places those seeds grow in Konoha. He's only been dead for about four hours but I can see bugs crawling out of his mouth."

Genma frowned. "That's a little too fast to be already attracting insects." The man peered closer. "Hey, they're only situating themselves around his fingers and mouth."

Itachi nodded. "He's been eating something that appeals to them greatly, something sugary and sweet."

Despite the simple nature of the case which seemingly looked like an accident due to the lack of struggle and physical wounds, Itachi could already see that the whole thing was a little strange. He understood why Genma had called him down.

Genma sighed. "We won't be able to tell what caused the boy's death until the autopsy but like I said, I called you down because something doesn't sit right with me. Your one of the best in the homicide department, can you tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree?"

Itachi had already deduced how the boy had died as soon as he stepped onto the railway tracks. His nose already picked up on the bitter scent that was lingering on the corpse and the strange lack of dilation in the eyes.

No, Itachi already knew what had killed this boy.

"This boy has been drugged. Severely." Itachi answered simply.

Genma blinked. "_Drugs?_ The kid comes from a pretty well off family and I doubt he would come in contact with any shady people that would sell him drugs."

"I didn't say he took them willingly and I was incorrect when I said just drugs…specifically poisons. He practically smells of chemicals, I'm guessing he was pumped till his body couldn't take it anymore. His bloodstream is probably an exotic chemical cocktail of acid by now."

Genma just blinked at Itachi. "How the devil did you guess that?"

"I didn't guess." He answered simply.

The other man just stared at him and sighed. "Alright but if his body is practically a poison waste dump, why on earth would he be here of all places, you said so yourself that he was planning on walking across the tracks. That means he was fully functional right before his time of death."

"Not unless the poisons were slow acting and set off by themselves when the time was right."

Genma stared down at the boy. "Itachi, that means this boy had been slowly consuming a plethora of poisons over a long period of time and didn't even know that his body was practically drowning itself in acid? Whoa, that's a little…horrible. Doesn't sound like an accident to me, was someone feeding it to him?"

Itachi shrugged. "Possibly, I can't say for sure until tests have been done." The raven turned to look at the other man. "Is that all?"

Genma looked up. "Yeah, sorry for taking your time, I guess this'll have to go towards the homicide department."

The Uchiha nodded and began to walk away, not showing how much his head had begun to hurt. The whole time he'd been talking to Genma, Itachi's mind felt like it was raging war inside his head. As the body of the boy came into view, odd flashes and erratic colours danced behind his eyes and Itachi found himself overwhelmed by memories of children in their beds, seemingly asleep but Itachi knew that the blood on his ninjato said otherwise.

He didn't understand why those horrible memories of that night were coming back now but he knew that the accompanying memories were not familiar at all. No, memories of a blossom tree near a pond and the smell of sandal wood were not his own. Itachi was now remembering things he had never experienced, sights and smells that were not his but undeniably familiar.

No, these were not his memories. They belonged to his host.

* * *

"Damn, where the hell did he go?"

Naruto walked around the streets while craning his neck to see if he could spot a familiar tousle of raven duck-butt hair but after thirty minutes of searching, Naruto knew he'd lost him…again.

Naruto stopped by a park bench to rub his thighs as he stretched them out.

He was damn tired of always chasing the bastard. After the Sasuke had left his apartment, Naruto wanted to chase after him as a strange coldness began to sink into his chest as he watched Sasuke's back walk away from him. He knew he was just over feeling things here but the blonde realised how much he hated it when Sasuke had done that. It was far too familiar for comfort.

After quickly running back and forth in his apartment to find the money to pay the landlord his rent, he bolted outside to find where the young Uchiha had gone. Naruto knew that he probably didn't need to worry about the guy but he couldn't help but be concerned for the jerk. That morning, Naruto had been prepared that the boy with Sasuke's face might not know him and if he did know him, Naruto would just try to act as normal as he could. Not that he knew what his host's normal behaviour was.

What Naruto realised he _wasn't _prepared for was the familiarity of it all.

He had been completely floored by the boy's mannerism and annoyance and that irritated scowl. They reminded him of the thirteen year old Sasuke back during their time on Team Seven. Even the small teasing and arguing was horribly familiar and Naruto had not been prepared for that. It was like he had his best friend back without the shadow looming over him and without the dark insanity dancing behind Sasuke's bleeding eyes.

Nostalgia was a terrible thing, Naruto decided, especially when it came in full bodied form like it did that morning.

Naruto's thought were interrupted by voices somewhere near him, they were shouting and yelling if he wasn't mistaken. Frowning a little, Naruto got off the bench to go and investigate. He didn't have to search far as the whiskered boy peered behind some bushes and found a clearing that was largely hidden by trees and logs. He also found the source of the noise.

There were about seven boys in the clearing and they were all shouting and cheering at the brawl that was taking place in the middle of the circle. From what Naruto could see it was a completely unfair fight due to the fact that it was two on one. The one being attacked was putting up a surprisingly good fight despite his disadvantage, but Naruto's keen eyes could already see that the boy was wearing thin. He was bleeding from the brow which was slowly obscuring the boy's eye sight and there were several visible cuts on his arms and legs.

Of course Naruto's observation stopped short when he recognised that weird hair-cut and a pair of the bushiest eyebrows that could only belong to two people on the planet. Rock Lee.

"Man, would you look at this guy, still think he'd be able to stand after we send four on one?" one boy jeered.

Another boy answered. "Or maybe we should just go all at once?"

"I do not care! I can fight you all at once! I will not give up!" Lee shouted with blazing confidence despite having one eye swollen shut.

Oh Lee, Naruto thought.

"You won't be saying that when we knock out every one of your teeth and make you swallow them." Another boy laughed as he began to circle him.

Lee could feel that one of his legs were shaking from the bad kick he received only moments ago but he was determined that he would not lose to such un-youthful people. Three of his attacker began their assault at once and Lee managed to block most of them despite the blazing pain blooming from the kicks and punched that he couldn't stop.

A stray kick landed under his chin which sent him crashing against a near-by tree. It seemed his crash against the trunk did more damage than the kick itself as he felt the impact brake on of his ribs with a sickening crunch.

Rock Lee peered through his one good eye and saw that the two guys he fought one-on-one were laying on the floor but the remaining four were slowly approaching him with rage twisted in their faces. The youthful boy wondered for the first time why they were always so adamant on seeing him fall. He didn't even know them.

Lee shifted from his sitting position and braced himself against the tree for support as he slowly drew himself into his defensive stance once more, completely ignoring the strangulating paint blooming in his ribs.

"He's like a freakin' cockroach, just can't stay down can he?" one guy added as he spat on the ground. "Well boys it pretty obvious what we have to do to insects that won't lay still right?"

The other boys wiped away their bloody noses and began to grin.

Only one of them stood a little further away and he didn't seemed to be enjoying this at all. "Y-you guys, I think that enough, we don't want to end up killing him."

The biggest guy out of the group turned to the boy in annoyance. "Shut it Mao!" he turned back to Lee who was still standing in his stance with shaky legs. "Don't worry, we won't kill him, but he'll be pretty damn close to it."

The leader of their group grabbed a thick branch from near-by and swung above his head as he readied himself to beat Lee to the ground. Lee braced himself for the attack but one of the other boys sprung a silent attack from his left and knocked back down on his back. Lee's eye widened as he saw the branch swinging towards him with violent force and decided that he should just close his eyes and hope he would be knocked out on the first swing.

But he felt nothing. Instead all he heard was an 'oomph!' and then silence.

Cracking open his good eye, Lee's eyes widened impeccably as the back of a blonde boy stood tall above him in a defiant stance while he grinned like a wild animal at the fallen pack leader.

Without another word, his blonde saviour shifted his stance into a form that Lee had never seen before then his grin broadened even further till his canine's shone in the sunlight. "Hey now, why so quiet?"

The biggest of the group who had been knocked to the floor looked up at the blonde stranger in rage and spat out, "What are you waiting for? Get him!"

The boys obediently dashed towards the blonde in unison and began to throw punches and kicks, left right and centre. Lee watched amazed as the blonde dodged all of their attacks with such agility and speed that he honestly looked like it took no effort. Lee barely registered the sudden whack the blonde boy gave to one of the attackers and in an instant the boy crumpled to the floor.

His two friends seemed momentarily shocked but they knew that they still had an advantage. It was still two on one. But it seemed the whiskered blonde just grinned wider at the challenge. "Is that all you've got? I dunno what you were talking about with insects but the only vermin I see here is you."

The two remaining boys began to circle the blonde teen while he remained still and poised in the centre, still grinning like a fox.

It seemed to Lee that the blonde boy was up to something, he knew enough about fighting to see that his saviour was planning. For a moment, blue eyes met Lee's and recognition twinkled behind those azure orbs. Lee suddenly understood and smiled broadly to himself. The blonde was signalling him and he was going to answer right back.

Naruto slowly circled and the two remaining boys mirrored in return but it seemed they were far too concerned with him to take note that Naruto had been leading them on to deliberately having their backs to Lee. Which Naruto knew was a big mistake.

It only took one glance in Lee direction and the bushy-browed teen knew it was time to attack. In perfect unison, Naruto suddenly attacked the boy on the right and Lee gave a surprise kick from behind to the boy on the left. In less than five second both the attackers were on the ground with both Lee and Naruto looming over them with victorious grins.

"Nice one Lee!" Naruto cheered, he turned suddenly to the leader of the gang and began to approach. "Now there's only you left."

The leader of attackers stared at his friends who laid half-conscious on the ground and looked like he wanted to rip Naruto's grin off. "Who the hell are you? Don't you know not to interfere with other people's fights?"

Naruto just picked his ear with his pinkie and wiped it on his shirt. "Sure I do, but that kinda went out the window when it was seven against one. Unless my friend here objects to me helping I 'm gonna kick your ass to kingdom come!"

"Mao! What are you doing? You gonna just stand there and watch, help me out here!" the boy growled out to his last remaining ally.

The smallest boy there was standing there fearfully looking at his leader then looking back at Naruto and Lee who stood side by side. "Utami, forget about it, please let's just stop this. There's no point." He stammered.

"Yosh! Let us stop this un-youthfulness and leave this behind us! I see no further purpose for such violence!" Lee exclaimed while holding a bloody nose and Naruto thought the boy never failed to look comical.

The boy called Utami growled and looked at Naruto with such loathing that he spat in his direction while finally turning to walk away. Naruto breathed out a sigh of relief as he saw the boy's back but it seemed the bully couldn't let go of his anger and decided to vent it out on his friend Mao. The small boy suddenly found his face crushed underneath the impact of Utami's punch and he gracelessly flew backwards against the ground.

Naruto was already by his side in a flash and tackled the boy to the ground in sudden rage. "What the hell did you do that for?" Naruto raised his fist and sent in smashing down to the boy's face. "Isn't he your friend? Didn't he just tell you to walk away? He freakin' saved you ya moron!" The blonde sent another punch flying down to Utami's bloodied face.

The bully named Utami was no longer coherent from the strong punches Naruto was inflicting on him but the blonde saw that the boy was already spitting out his teeth and reluctantly stopped.

"Tsk," Naruto suddenly released him from the ground and backed off, "Just get out of here, I already feel dirty from you. You're not worth hitting, especially against someone who'd raised their hand against their own colleague."

Naruto turned a blind eye as the bully stumbled up and ran through the trees and out of sight.

The blonde gave a great bellowing sigh and with one breath his mood completely changed again. "Well, that was good exercise." Naruto then realised the boy Mao was just beginning to stand up and visibly flinched as Naruto began to walk towards him. "Hey, you're name is Mao right?"

The meek boy nodded in fear.

"Geez stop with that look, I'm not gonna hit you. I just thought that you don't seem like the type to hang around scum like the Utami guy, what's with that?" Naruto asked well naturedly.

It seemed Mao was still shaking like a leaf, maybe from fear of the blonde or just the shock of being suddenly punched in the face.

The boy's eyes widen impeccably as he felt the warm weight of Naruto's hand on his head.

"Look, I know you didn't fight cause you didn't want to but don't think you're the good guy here just because of that. You still stood by them and bystanders are just as guilty, you understand?" Naruto asked while scratching his neck.

Mao's eyes were still wide and looking at Naruto as if he were an alien wearing panty hoses. Naruto figured it was a lost case.

"Alright just get out of here kid and next time don't hang around stupid melons like him, you can do better." The boy called Mao nodded and quickly dashed off.

Naruto cracked his knuckles while rubbing his sore neck. "Oh man, should've warmed up before I did that kick, that's gonna cramp up tonight."

When Naruto turned to see if Lee was alright, he was startled to meet a pair of watering eyes and a ridiculously admiring look painted across Bushy-Brow's face.

"I – I cannot thank you enough my youthful friend! You have displayed such kindness and coolness I will never stop to try and achieve! And you saved me my good friend, for that I also cannot thank you enough!" the boy looked practically frantic with over flowing gratitude that it honestly made Naruto feel frightened. "And just now, your display of wisdom and compassion for our unfortunate friend Mao was such a prime example of your youthfulness; I do not know how to express my amazement and admiration!"

Dear god, he'd done it hadn't he? But the startling similarities in Lee's persona to the ninja he knew back home were making him feel nostalgic that Naruto ignored the overflowing beams of tears running down Lee's bloody face and just raised his thumb in a good guy pose. "Hey, what are friend's for!"

Lee stopped and stared at Naruto with wide eyes. "We are friends?"

Naruto blinked and remember that this Lee probably didn't know him. Crap he even called Lee by his name before. He scolded himself for slipping but his worries were not needed as Lee suddenly took Naruto by the hand and exclaimed. "YOSH! What better way to make friend than during the hardships of battle!" he stuck out his hand. "I am Rock Lee, aspiring martial artist!"

The blonde took his hand with a good-natured grin and shook it. "Nice to meet you Lee, I'm Uzumaki Naruto, don't you forget it!"

* * *

"Hey kid open up!"

Naruto was on his couch rubbing the cramps out of his legs when someone began banging on the door.

"Yeah, I'm coming! Hang on!" he quickly ran to open the door and found Kitty standing in the doorway with a wired outfit on.

"Kitty…why are you dressed like a nurse?" Naruto asked reluctantly as he closed the door behind him.

"Huh, this? Oh nothing, just something for work, ignore it." She explained nonchalantly as she headed for his fridge.

Naruto found very hard to ignore when the skimpy number was riding up her thighs as she walked.

Kitty began to rummage around his fridge. "Hey kid don't you have any snacks in here?"

"Hey stop taking my food!" the blonde complained.

"Don't be stingy, a girl's got to eat." She found a dish of cherry tomatoes that Naruto had offered Sasuke that morning and sniffed it. "Anywho, you're damn lucky I came by today 'cause I have a bonus check for you from Children's Services. You were supposed to get it sooner but…"

"Let me guess, you forgot?" Naruto added unimpressed.

"No…I just had other pressing matters that were more important than a brat like you." Kitty remarked as she popped a cherry tomato into her mouth. "Oh, these are nice."

"Alright, as long as you don't show up in the middle of the night like last time." Naruto sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "You're not gonna stay here again are you?"

Kitty sudden gave a cheeky grin and rubbed up against Naruto. "You want me to stay tonight baby blue eyes? All you have to do is ask you know. Don't be shy."

The poor boy turned a dazzling shade of red as she pressed up against him and winked. "Argh! Stop doing that, you're a grown woman for god's sake!"

The crazy woman began to laugh and patted Naruto on the head. "Now that's what I was looking for, you're so cute Naruto."

"Whatever, just what else are you here for?" Naruto sighed as he tried to calm his blush down.

Kitty gave Naruto the bonus check that she had mentioned but she also presented Naruto an A4 enclosed envelope that had _Uzumaki Naruto_ written clearly at the front.

Naruto blinked at it as he took it. "What's this?"

"Well, this is a letter that had been given to me by a colleague of mine who's also a lawyer. I'd been told to give this to you on your sixteenth birthday; there was a set of instructions that stated you were not to be given this envelope until the mentioned time." Kitty wore an unusual sober look. "I apologize in advance, I know your sixteenth birthday had passed some time ago and this letter should have come to you sooner but there had been some problems on my side of things. Also your recent health had not helped either."

Naruto nodded. "Okay, do you know what's inside it?"

Kitty shook her head. "No one does, it's for your eyes only." She swung her bag over her shoulder and saluted him. "Alright gotta go, places to be, people to see."

Naruto waved the social worker off and closed the door.

His blue eyes locked onto the envelope again and frowned. _For your eyes only_. But he wasn't the right Uzumaki Naruto, so technically this letter was not for him.

Would it be invading his host's privacy if he opened it? Would he know if he did? Was the _other _Naruto consciously aware of everything he did? That idea actually freaked him a lot more than he thought. Not for the first time, Naruto felt like he was wearing someone else skin and a strange sense of guilt sank in his gut as his thumb slowly peeled the seal away.

Handling the paper like it was made of dust, Naruto gingerly slipped the papers he found inside slowly up till he could make out some writing but he forced himself not to read anything and just look generally at the paper.

He noticed the familiar characters on the sheets of A4 paper and realised that it was not in English but written in Japanese.

Naruto dropped the check in this hand and his eyes widen in shock.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that Naruto's eyes were more familiar with Japanese than English, or maybe his mind picked out the words he felt were the most significant but those blue eyes locked onto a name he didn't expect to see.

Beautiful calligraphy that marked the page was forgotten and the rest of the papers behind were also lost to him as Naruto focused completely on the name that was scrawled beautifully at the bottom.

波風ミナト

_Namikaze Minato_

* * *

**A/N:** A death, a fight, a new bushy-browed friend and a letter from a long dead loved one.

I'll just like to add that Rock Lee is such a nutty character that it's unbelievably easy to love him. Only he could rock a hair cut like that.

Cheers

CADEL


End file.
